


TERRITORY

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, College, Conversations, Corrupted Steven Universe, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Horns, Human/Monster Romance, Kissing, Long, Masturbation, Monsters, Nature, Nudity, Orgasm, Pining, Sex, Shapeshifting, Smut, Tails, Tongues, Underwear, Vaginal Sex, Vibrators, shared body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:02:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: In an alternate timeline, Steven’s corruption hurt his body and his soul, twisting it to the point of isolation. To combat his misery, Steven decided to isolate himself in the woods, away from the world, away from his family.Almost three years later, Connie Mahwswaran has decided that enough is enough. She needs to see Steven to check on him, check on his body and mind, see how he’s been coping — if he’s even alive. But what she finds inside herself is even more terrifying than what she finds inside the forest perimeter. Their meeting is more than a check-up. Connie has to ask herself what it means to love Steven like this. His love means everything to her.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 45
Kudos: 243





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cover page done by the amazing @Katie_TheSlayer! Check her Twitter for more art and commission info.

Connie knew Pearl’s handwriting from the moment she saw the signage. The infamous “Please” underneath “KEEP OUT” was written in haste, on a board that Connie recognized had been torn off of the beach house. She raised the sign in her hand, then let it fall back against the fence. The young woman stepped back and examined the perimeter.

Greg Universe’s donation was enough to keep state officials from bothering with looking into the area of forest cordoned off here. Around the world, Connie knew there were other swaths of land of varying sizes that had been at one point or another in Earth’s history deemed unfit for humans, a kind of burial ground for Gem artifacts. The amount of awareness combined with the utter lack of historical documentation always astounded her. Nobody had talked about magic, or Gems, or anything like that when she was growing up. There were just parts of the world humans were not meant to take over, and that was that. Whatever mark the alien invasion had made was enough to keep the average human away.

Connie hoisted her backpack and reached over to the pruning shears. She was no average human.

Travel would have been easier with Lion, but the beast refused to come within a certain distance of Steven’s territory. He, along with the Gems and the rest of Beach City, respected the border that Steven had asked for. Over the course of the three years since, moss had grown over the little metal links, and the signs of the territory had become sun-weathered and beaten by the weather. Connie had to wonder exactly how Steven had survived with the amount of isolation the fence created. Even with a river running through, there had to be something else.

She felt a pit in her stomach. There was a chance that Steven hadn’t survived. But that was impossible, Connie knew. He was still a Gem, despite it all, and there were still roars that echoed down into the valley. She had asked the residents about them before hiking up. One man claimed it was a werewolf that roamed the hills. Some young cashier had been adamant that the fenced-off area was to keep control of government secrets. One woman just shook her head at Connie and told her not to go up there, not ever.

Connie knelt on the ground. She took the shears and began to snip through the squares of the fence. One by one, she dismantled the links going straight up, until she could push them apart. With one hand, she tested the gap. It was just big enough. She didn’t want to accidentally let anything in.

The girl unslung her backpack and pushed it against the metal into the territory. There was no going back now. Already, it was possible that Steven had heard her and was spying on her from afar. His senses had been heightened, or maybe they had always been that good. But he knew these woods like any animal now.

She huffed as she pulled the fence apart, peeling back the layer to slide into the grassy clearing on the edge of the woods. Connie stood up with the shears in her hand, listening to the silent air. There was birdsong still. He hadn’t chased them all off yet.

There was a small bedroll and enough food to last her for a couple days. Looking for Steven was going to be an ordeal, she just knew it. He hadn’t changed a bit. Even now, he was probably hiding from her, staked out behind one of the trees of this intentionally pathless woodland. He was watching her with those big, black eyes. He was scared. He had to be.

It was just like that time when they were kids, when Steven had come back from his imprisonment and had wanted to stay away, for her safety, until he had come back and badgered him into the truth. Connie smiled as she walked through the undergrowth. He had tried so hard to hide his feelings, but friendship had won out. Connie thought of all the times he had been tried and tested over the years, the extent he went to to hide his pain. 

She thought about his transformation. Her pace slowed as she gripped the straps of her backpack. She could picture so clearly his jawbone jutting out against his skin as he screamed in pain. Steven’s bones and teeth had torn into his body as it shifted and grew and twisted into its new gargantuan shape. The revolution inside of him was so painful to watch. The stars had been blocked off by Steven’s segmented, spiked body. The purple of his shifting skin had made him look like a single rotting vein, pulsing and swollen inside its two-ton prison. 

Everyone had been surprised at the aftermath, most of all Steven. He had raised his shield to use as a mirror after he looked down at the claws at the end of his fingertips. The shield itself was asymmetrical and angular, and in the pinkness Steven saw what he had become. That was the beginning of the end.

Nobody was allowed to see him until he came down, wrapped in nothing but a punctured blanket, to explain his demands to his father. Everyone had been sitting in the living room waiting for him, but the boy wouldn’t let anyone but Greg hear his plan. After, when Greg explained, there were objections.

“He can’t just live like a wild animal!” Pearl had exclaimed. “Steven needs shelter, food, basic human needs. And we need to figure out how to get him back to normal!”

“What if this is normal?” Amethyst said. “What if he can’t change back?”

“There has to be a way! Can’t you guys talk to the Diamonds?” Connie had asked.

“He’s not going to come back.”

Everyone had turned to Greg. The man had been gripping a plastic cup of water, with his hands squeezing it so hard it was shaking. His lip had twisted up, tears dripping into his beard, into the water he held.

“Steven can feel himself inside,” the man continued, “and he knows there’s no fixing this. He’s thought about nothing but coming back for the past few days, but he knows he can’t. He’s accepted that. I think we don’t have a choice. Because he’s not afraid to hurt himself to get what he wants this time. What’s he got to lose?”

There had been more arguments about what to do between Connie and the Gems, but Greg was already resigned to keeping his son safe. He had taken the corruption the hardest out of all of them. Even as he had driven away with Steven in the back of the van and all the Gems standing on the porch to wave goodbye, he still had the scars on his arms from when he had embraced his son, shrunken and splotched and covered with spines down there on the beach. One patched-up arm dangled out the window as he drove Steven to his new home.

Connie knew that Steven’s territory was about 5,000 acres big, enough for him to wander without being seen, big enough to disrupt the natural ecosystem. She had snuck into the cartography section of the campus science building one night to take notes on the best approach, mapping out her plan of attack. The Gems had hiked here in the first year or so on and off, calling to Steven from the edges. Once, Amethyst had tried to fly over in a helicopter form, and a massive spiked shield had chased her out of the air. 

There had been no contact since Steven was eighteen. It must have been close now to his twenty-second birthday, Connie thought, off be only a month or so. The summer was the best time to do this, since she had no college classes and all of her other activities could be put on hold. As far as he parent were concerned, she was on a geology trip studying volcanic rock. As far as the Gems and Greg were concerned, she was still at school. 

The air was thick and tasted lush. These woods were thriving. Connie had no idea where she was going, but she walked along the forest floor in a bit of a haze, looking up and around at all the wildlife. Squirrels chittered in the branches at the songbirds living there. Woodpeckers knocked on trees loud enough to shake the world with their rhythm. Winged insects filled the evergreen canopy with gentle buzzing, and crickets and grasshoppers sang from the underbrush. Everything was thriving here. It was then that Connie looked ahead at the tree.

This was what she had been looking for. The trunk had been gouged all down its side with massive clawmarks. The tree stood strong, only its bark dislodged, but it was a severe sight. Nothing in nature could have done this — not beavers, not cougars, nothing but a single young man with determination and horrible pain inside.

Connie felt her stomach seize up inside of her. It had been so long since she had seen Steven at all, longer since he had had any contact with the outside world. So much had changed in technology and entertainment, in world history and everyone’s personal lives, and he hadn’t been around to witness any of it, locked as he was inside a prison of his own making. But he was alive, and the clawed tree proved it. Maybe he used these to mark where he had been before, or maybe it was like how rodents had to chew to keep their teeth from reaching their brain. 

There was a chance that Steven had gone completely feral, but Connie refused to acknowledge that possibility. He demonstrated enough to want to come out here to the wild, and he had clearly survived without breaking the perimeter. The boy that she knew and loved was still here and ready to be reasoned with. But she had to ask herself why she was here at all, against Steven’s wishes, despite everything he had said when he had left. There was another chance that he would hurt her and chase her out. Connie couldn’t let the opportunity go. She had so much to tell him.

The young woman rested her hand against the clawed tree, feeling the splinters threatening to push into her skin. It was an old mark, but he had to be around here regardless. Connie scanned the treeline. There, in the distance, she saw the telltale sign that another tree had been gouged out. She made a beeline.

Other signs pointed to Steven’s life here. Certain paths, as Connie went from tree to tree, were trodden over from months of use, work into dirt with the markings of giant footprints going over them. The bushes had been pushed aside to form a path for the man’s walking, running, maybe even sprinting on all fours. Connie could only imagine the freedom of being out here and meditating in the light. The winters must have been brutal. Maybe Steven could hibernate now, blocking himself off after gorging himself on trapped birds. The girl shuddered at the thought.

He had to recognize her. Connie’s first and foremost fear came dribbling up to the surface. He couldn’t have forgotten about her, not after all the years they spent together. But maybe he had forgotten about everyone. Maybe the corruption had run its course, and Steven’s brain was worn out from solitary isolation. He had been such a social person. Connie ached to think of all the things he had lost while he had trapped himself here.

But he had thought it was for the best, and he had come here with the best intentions. Connie hated that thought. The best intentions, to her, were still selfish, immersed in misery and self-pity and filled with regret. She had to believe Steven regretted his choice. It was the only way to get him to potentially come home again.

After a few minutes of walking, Connie came across the river. It was wider than she had anticipated, but shallow, only a foot or so deep not counting the pools that studded the bottom of the basin. The riverbed was filled with various sizes of smooth rocks, deposited there from glaciers so many thousands of years ago. Something was wrong. Connie climbed out from the woods and onto the bank of the river, looking downstream.

In certain places, it looked as though there were pits, places where rocks had been uprooted from the river to leave indentations and pockmarks in the bottom. The soil was fresher and the water flowed differently around those spots. Connie narrowed her eyes. The stones had been moved. Even boulders had been lifted up. Something in the girl’s gut told her to wander downstream.

The trek was beautiful, if not a little treacherous. Connie stayed to the side of the river as she climbed along, balancing her backpack on her shoulders. Summer sunbeams broke through the trees and made paths of light on the surface of the running water. The hill continued at a gentle slope as Connie hopped from one rock to the next, holding on to the trees as she passed. More trees appeared to be marked here, but not quite as heavily. There were merely scratches, like massive bramble scars, that Connie saw in their skin.

Steven could survive out here. Out of all the things he was capable of, surviving was one of them. He had read the books with Connie and watched the TubeTube videos with her of different shows on different educational channels. He had common sense as well, enough to keep himself afloat by his lonetime. Steven had to be alive, or better yet, thriving. But Connie was worried about his mental health, and she couldn’t stop thinking about how lonely the young man must be out here without anyone to talk to. He could create life, but it wasn’t the same.

Suddenly, the landscape dropped off before her. She could see it downriver, but she could hardly believe it at first. It looked like a circle had been dug out of the earth, lifted like a slice of dough out of a cookie sheet. The circle must have been fifty feet wide. Only one thing could have done this, and it wasn’t natural. Connie felt her heart hammering in her chest. The summer sun made her shirt stick to her back. She had hoped not to be this nervous, but at this point she couldn’t calm herself down.

On the precipice of the dropoff, Connie stopped and stared over the edge. The rocks at the mouth had been condensed to make a narrow stream that splashed down in an artificial waterfall into the pool. The earth had been dug up and filled with rocks, a stone oasis in the middle of the forest.

Connie couldn’t believe it. Steven had dammed the river to make his own massive swimming hole. His residence must be somewhere around here. As she stared, Connie couldn’t help but notice the craftsmanship of the rocks, the way that the larger stones on the outside made a tasteful barrier, the way that felled trees and mud made a genuine dam on the other side of the river. It was an incredible feat of architecture. It must have taken weeks to get right.

At the base of the waterfall was Steven.

The girl peered over the edge, unsure if she was seeing correctly, and she immediately covered her mouth and turned away back to the river. It had to be Steven. Connie hadn’t seen him in over a year, and he was so close to her again, and he was completely naked. She closed her eyes and took stock of herself. Her heart pounded in her chest suddenly. She had expected Steven to be walking or eating or crying, or perhaps she had expected him to be in a fully feral state, but somehow she always expected him to be clothed. Then again, he hadn’t brought much with him in isolation, and his clothing couldn’t last for all that long.

What did she do now? Connie considered the consequences of jumping down and confronting the man. He might not even be embarrassed to be seen this way. It would be a surprise to see Connie regardless, and she had no idea how Steven would react. She didn’t even know what his current state of mind was. A quick glance at the purple-blotched figure underneath the water was nothing to go off of.

She decided to be stealthy. Steven would get to face her whenever she was ready, on her own terms. Running away from the rest of the world meant that he had given up his right to be surprised anymore. The surge of anger was new, but Connie rode it out as she hoked backwards, taking the long way around through the woods and down the hill. She heard the waterfall and the river burbling on her left all the way down. 

When she emerged again, Connie was crouching in the bushes to the side of the pool. She peeked out from behind the overgrowth, watching Steven from a distance.

He seemed to have grown at least a foot since Steven had left. The young man had lifted a smooth boulder and placed it directly underneath the waterfall, and sat on top of the rock with one leg bent and one dangling. Just like the last time Connie had seen him, his head was adorned with two massive horns, glistening in the sun and the water as they jutted out from his hair. The same reddish spines stuck out of his elbows like blades, and a trail of triangular mineral outcroppings ran from the back of his neck down his spine, and down to the swinging tail. Steven had let it grow, and it must have been as long as his legs now, curled behind him on the boulder. All over his body, his skin had been lightly tanned from the outdoor lifestyle, but he was covered in scars and scratches, pink lines criss-crossing the width of his chest and shoulders, down over his hairy stomach paunch and in between the thickness of his thighs. Both his hands and feet resembled that of a werewolf trapped mid-transformation. The thick fingers ended in gleaming points, and his toes had completely changed shape; Connie recognized from her biology lab the trademark of retractable claws. His mouth was jagged and maw-like, betraying the sharp teeth inside, with the exception of two tusks that jutted out from either side of his mouth.

The young woman let her eyes wander. In the cold water and warm sunlight, Steven’s genitals remained as natural as they must have been when he was fully human. A mess of water-matted dark hair covered the space underneath his stomach, and from the mass was the thickness of the young man’s organs. Connie couldn’t help but stare. Nothing was out of place, but even with the proportional aspect, Steven was bigger than he had been before.

Connie had to raise a finger to her mouth and bite. She had tried so desperately not to consider ulterior motives while she was here, but again, the nudity was a surprise. Her legs shook to support her. In college, she had had so many boys try and come up to romance her, but her thoughts at night always drifted back to her best friend. Some nights of heartache had resulted in a stray hand, a tearstained pillow, ruined panties after dissociating for an hour with trembling fingers. Out here in the wilderness, Steven must have been so lonely. Connie wondered where his thoughts were. 

He opened his eyes. The whites had been replaced with a deep ebon well. Connie bit harder into her finger as Steven looked around the clearing, blinking as if roused from a deep slumber. His irises were contained in a circle of bright pink, so bright Connie could see it from her little outpost. She already knew what the pupils looked like. She remembered their magic diamond shape. The world must have looked different, but nobody but Steven would ever know.

The monstrous man sniffed the air. He tensed. In a single fluid motion, Steven straightened himself upright and slid off the boulder into the pool. He strode toward the center with his tail raised, mouth partially open in a growl. Connie knew he was scanning for intruders. His throat vibrated with a low warning sound, not yet audible but in the process of emerging. 

He looked so much like a wild animal in the body of a man. Connie was struck with the pain of seeing him like this. The caring boy with the big brown eyes was standing in his territory like a wolf, like a beast. Wine-dark stains covered his raw skin. The past was always stuck there. Steven turned in a slow circle with his teeth bared, his hands raised in aggression. Connie knew that, if he wanted, Steven could be sneaking out to kill for his prey. He was the woods’ most dangerous apex predator.

She stood up and rushed to the edge of the pool. Her eyes were already blurring with tears.

“Steven—!”

It took less than a second for the young man to turn and launch himself at the voice. Connie saw a flash of skin, and the sun was blotted out with the shape of the pouncing Steven. For a split second, Connie marveled at the launch, a single image of the man with his arms extended and his mouth open. His naked body was propelled with impossible force out of the water, and all of that weight hit Connie like a wrecking ball. Steven’s tackle grabbed her shoulders and sent Connie into the ground. She slid along the earth and the grass with an inaudible scream, as the wind had been blown out of her lungs in an instant. She felt the contents of her backpack tumbling with her as Steven lunged and forced her into the earth. 

The sound of skidding rocks and settling dust was overtaken by the heavy growling and panting of Steven’s presence. It was the only thing Connie could hear over the ringing in her ears. She had to squint to open her eyes, but she didn’t need to to know that Steven was close to her face. She could feel the hor breath rising and falling against her nose. Her arm felt like it was sprained, and her legs were definitely bruised from the impact. Steven’s arms pinned Connie to the dirt by the shoulders. She couched, sun-hot sand burning up her lungs. 

The breaths slowed in her face. Connie opened her eyes and looked up into Steven’s own. His naked body was crouched on top of her, and he could kill her at any moment, but the two merely stared. Connie tried to suppress her cough, her mouth heaving as she tried to catch her breath. The blank animalism spread into realization, the realization into fear, and the fear into confusion as Steven looked down on Connie. The birds had stopped singing for the time being.

“You,” he mumbled.

His voice was deeper, hoarser, like he hadn’t spoken in weeks. Maybe he hadn’t. Connie opened her mouth to say something, but merely coughed again, turning her head to the side. She felt the weight rise off of her shoulders. The girl tried to sit up as the sun came back down to her face again. She was disoriented, but reached out to touch Steven anyway; her fingers grasped air.

“S-Steven…”

She heard a splash. Connie let her backpack fall to the ground as she staggered to her feet and winced. He really had tackled her like he would have an intruder. No, that was the wrong way to think about it — she was an intruder. The atmosphere around the pool was suddenly awkward, with Connie’s presence tainting the woods. But she had heard his voice. She had felt his touch. He was alive, and real, and he had survived out here in the woods with his memory intact. Steven still knew who she was, and as Connie forced her eyes back open, she understood why he was suddenly retreating into the pool, backpedaling in fear.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Steven muttered. “Connie. Why — _Connie_.”

The exasperation and disbelief was palpable. There wasn’t a chance in the world he was expecting any visitors, much less his childhood friend. Yelling at strange hikers was different than confronting Connie, and the girl knew it. He was off-kilter. With the upper hand, the girl watched Steven as he sunk to his knees. He watched Connie like a hippo, with just his eyes above the water and his tail poking up curiously. There were some parts he couldn’t betray. Underneath the clear water, Connie saw that he was covering his groin with both hands.

“I wanted — to see you. I’m on break from school.”

An ache ran down her arm. Connie winced, rolling her shoulders. The fall had been harder than she had anticipated. Steven shrunk back in apparent shame. It was good to know, at least, that he knew when he had done something wrong. Tackling someone to the ground was fine when they had been sparring as children, but not so much now.

“You need to go right now. Go back, go away, get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving until… Ow. I’m not leaving until I get what I want.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“I want to know you’re okay! I want to — I just want to see you!”

“You’ve seen me. All of me. Now leave.”

Steven punctuated the last word with exhaustion. No, there was something else in there. Connie watched him drifting away, towards one side of the falls. She glanced down the path, and there was indeed a path, a well-trodden area that led to Steven’s home, she presumed. On a stump by the path was a tailored sheet of leaves, something that could be considered a skirt or a wrap. So that’s what he had been wearing. Steven saw her glance, and began to jump through the water. Connie broke into a jog, trying to get ahead to the boy’s changing spot.

The beast broke out of the water and jumped with his back turned to Connie. The girl slowed down as he grabbed the leaves and twisted the wrap around his waist. Steven licked his thumb and held it to the place on his hip where the wrap connected. The vines fused where they had been snapped before, weaving into place again. Connie marveled at Steven’s ingenuity, and studied his wrap. All different kinds of leaves had been smashed together, not woven, but biologically fused at a cellular level with Steven’s magic. He had created a matrix of new species interactions, just to keep himself dignified to a public that didn’t exist. The wrap hung low on his hips, pulled up underneath the tail.

“Well, I want to check up on you,” Connie said.

“I don’t want you to be here,” Steven snapped. “I don’t want anyone. I told you all that.”

“Then make me leave.”

Steven turned to stare. Connie watched him glare at her, trying to read her mind. The young woman crossed her sore arms across her chest and stared right back. It was so hard to keep concentrated on those eyes. They were as deep as an abandoned well, dark as onyx and twice as lustrous. Fire blazed inside the pink, but Steven could only stand there. He stood to his full height and rolled his shoulders, the bones in his spine cracking as he rolled his muscles. Exposed to the summer heat, the dripping monster started to growl in his throat once more.

But Connie held her ground. She could handle a roar. She had mentally prepared herself for anything that the boy could throw at her. He seethed with impotent rage and ground his hands into fists. Steven didn’t dare make a move, and she knew it. His tail thrashed against the earth behind him, striking the pebbles and the stump. Woodchips and shrapnel littered the ground. Still, Connie did not move.

Steven opened his mouth, but only a guttural grunt sounded. His breaths became heavy and his eyes began to dart away. He couldn’t hold on to call Connie’s bluff. Ejecting her from the territory was out of the question. After he saw her, after he had tackled her, he couldn’t bear to lay a finger on her. Connie didn’t feel like smiling, but the rush of victory was enough to make her drop her arms. Steven relaxed his muscles and hung his head to the side.

Connie stepped forwards before he could react and hugged herself to his body. He was still wet. He snorted in surprise, but only tensed under her grasp. Connie held him in as tight as grip as he soul would allow. 

It was the first time that she had touched corrupted skin. The purple patches were rough-hewn and scaly, like the skin of a dragon. Their texture was uniquely Steven’s, callused and misshapen. Each patch was the color of unspoken pain. Connie’s arms felt up the muscles of Steven’s back as she pressed her head against his chest. He was taller now, tall enough for her to have to raise herself up on her toes to hear his heartbeat. She felt a flutter in her body at the sense of his breadth. Steven was massive.

Slowly, she felt the arms come around her shoulders, and the warm wetness of his freshly bathed body engulfed her. There was no tallow for soap, and Steven smelled like an animal, like the outdoors, as good as any person who had spend the last however many months taking cold baths underneath a waterfall. But it wasn’t particularly unpleasant, not stagnant or repulsive. He smelled like the wilds. No company could make a scent like Steven. Connie inhaled the scent of the beast, and she loved him all the more for it.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

He was choking up. Connie was squeezed even tighter, and she felt a warm drop roll onto the top of her head. She let Steven cry it out softly. The young man crouched suddenly, dropping to one knee and moving his arms. He hugged her like a teddy bear. His arms wrapped underneath Connie’s own, crossing over her back and pulling her close to his torso. Connie let out another breath as her sore body was manhandled, but she didn’t mind. She closed her eyes and moved her face away from the sharpness of Steven’s horns as he buried his face in her shoulder. 

The two of them rocked as Steven cried, and Connie let the tears roll from her cheeks as well, falling down her chin and onto Steven’s shoulder. The blades on his elbows jutted out, and she didn’t care if anything scraped her skin. She could be healed. Even not, the tears that soaked through her t-shirt and onto her skin were tingling, and the soreness she had felt from Steven’s tackling was starting to fade. There was always more healing to be done.

The hug lasted for as long as Steven needed it to. The man sniffled and stood, releasing Connie as the two of them wiped their eyes and smiled at each other. Despite his unusual coloration, Steven’s tears were as clear and beautiful as ever. The young man took one shuddering breath and let his smile fade.

“Even dad’s staying out,” Steven said. “The Gems don’t come, the townies don’t come, I’ve scared off all the hikers, and the bears. But I guess I can’t keep you away, can I.”

“I know you, Steven. I know you’re not doing okay. Call that my special Gem power.”

“You don’t need to be smart to know I made a mistake. But I’m doing okay, despite… You know.”

“Brooding and growling naked under waterfalls is doing okay?”

Steven’s face flushed a deep crimson. It was the first time Connie had seen Steven naked, even though there had been some incidents where Connie would have seen more than she wanted to when she was in town, according to Greg’s old stories about the boardwalk. That was back when Steven was unashamed and young, and now that they were both young adults, Connie knew there was more to his embarrassment. 

That couldn’t be the only reason why she was here. Even though she was smiling, Connie glanced to the side and cursed herself in her head. She was here for emotional support and a check-in for a day, not for any other reason her body decided to throw at her.

It almost couldn’t be helped, though. Steven rose to his full height again, attempting an apologetic smile at his friend. The summer breeze blew over the pool, exposing the crack in the grass skirt where the vine could easily be snapped on and off. Every part of Steven was build like the bears he had chased off. Magical musculature held him together, and he exuded power despite his bashful attitude. Connie had felt it when she was hugged, and she did her best to take deep breaths now as she watched him tug on his only clothing uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled.

“Nothing to be ashamed of. I took some life drawing classes my second semester, so I’ve had to study a body before.”

“Well, that’s different! They get paid to come in and do that, right? Nobody’d pay me to do anything but be an extra in a monster movie.”

“Steven, your body is…”

Words failed Connie. Steven watched her open and close her mouth as she tried to get the words out. The more time she took, the more the young man became hinged on her words, and the stranger his expression became. He was embarrassed, but Connie could feel herself flushing as well. She had never really told Steven how much his body meant to her before. When she daydreamed as an adolescent, the snuggle sessions she had in her head with Steven were always with him being larger. Now that they were here and she had seen him in all his glory, she could only close her mouth and heave a deep sigh.

“I’m glad I’m here,” she finished. “I’m happy to see you.”

“You got your pack. How long were you planning to stay?”

“As long as I need to.”

“Well, it’s getting late in the afternoon. Dunno if you need to take care of anything, if anyone’s gonna call the police if you’re gone for too long.”

“I’m taken care of.”

Connie could feel Steven’s eyes on her as she walked to get her backpack. The food was probably crushed, but that was okay. She could eat the crumbs and scraps. The bedroll could take a beating. The other survival gear was probably fine as well. All that could be checked later. For right now, the girl hoisted her things and came back to where Steven was waiting patiently.

“I’m sorry about jumping on you earlier,” Steven said. “I haven’t dealt with any intruders for a while.”

“You can heal me later.”

The tears had only done so much. There were still little scrapes and bruises and muscle soreness that had to be taken care of. Still, Connie let Steven set the pace for this. He was where Connie wanted him to be, and he appeared to have let his guard down enough to let the young woman back into his world.

Even with her mind racing, Connie knew she couldn’t wait to tell Greg and the Gems about what was happening here. Steven was living, and he appeared to be healthy, and he had all his wits about him, and he was self-aware enough to maybe come back. That was a pipe dream and Connie realized it, but the thought was still there. Somehow, maybe she could convince him to return to the beach house, to alter it and help rebuild it in his own image. Nothing was impossible. But she knew, in the back of her head, that Steven probably wasn’t ready. Nobody could ever know what kind of pain he had been through to come to this point. The fact that he was still mostly intact despite the isolation was a warning sign; Connie wasn’t sure what it was warning her about.

They started through the woods. Steven held Connie’s hand, gripping as gently as he could so as not to scar or scratch. His fingers curled, and the two moved silently. Steven cleared his throat after a moment. 

“How’s...school?” he asked. 

“School’s going. I’m blowing off a few internships to be here, but they’re holding at least one summer position for when I get back. I’m getting some experience in the state offices.”

“W-wow! That’s impressive, Connie!”

“It’s nothing they haven’t done with other interns,” she said, “I’m just the newest of the bunch. Hopefully they’ll actually let me work instead of just getting coffee.”

“Ha, yeah, that would be...the worst.”

They walked in relative silence. The birds and bugs came back into the air, a song of questioning. Connie knew she was a stranger here, and she had to act with a degree of confidence. It was all fake, all a show. Truthfully, she had been terrified, and she still was even though she couldn’t for the life of her place why. The held on to Steven’s hand as they walked through the lush forest, and Connie tried to get her mind to focus on anything else. The smell of pine and honey was enough to calm her somewhat, as was the presence of the sturdy trees. She looked for the places Steven had gouged out the wood, pathways, his own animal marking. The bark around there was cauterized, in a way, as if Steven had torn a hole in the tree before sealing the circle of destruction with his healing magic. No matter how much he destroyed, he would always have that power inside.

“My camp is right up ahead,” Steven said.

But Connie could already see it through the trees. It was impossible not to. The woman covered her mouth in disbelief as they got closer.

Steven had unearthed massive stones from the ground and from the surrounding area, uprooting boulders and shale the width of a semi. It resembled Jasper’s hovel, but there were two stories to the house-like structure, connected with sets of stairs carved from hand. On the lower floor was a massive boulder with a smooth indentation covered in dried moss, a kind of nest partially sunken into the ground, with racks of dried fruits and vegetables on the other side of the room. The floor of the first story was tiled with smooth river stones, each set in their place with dried mud, a perfect ornate mosaic. On the upper floor there was a series of tools and tablets, all of them made from wood and stone lashed together. Connie recognized a hooked spear, a hoe, and a bow for firestarting. Medium-sized stones had been carved into buckets for holding small tools like knives and skewers. Steven had started his own miniature civilization out here. Out in front was a massive fire pit and cooking implements. To the left of the building, there was a massive sprawling garden in the dirt. Connie recognized peas and tomatoes, leafy vegetables like spinach and lettuce, stalks of corn and fruit-bearing apple and pear trees, blackberries, raspberries, melons, and even a stalked plant that Connie recognized as wheat.

“This is incredible,” she breathed.

“It’s something to pass the time. I’ve been considering taming some birds for eggs, but I’m fine with letting them go wild.”

“Where did you get all of those plants?”

“I talked to dad about getting me seeds before I came here. He didn’t tell anyone. Magical spit makes everything grow, and I can shield them with myself in the winter.”

Connie thought about Steven’s Gem powers and what he could do by himself out here. They had seen the extent of what his diamond could do before, but now that he was out here and he had to survive, he must have discovered all sorts of uses for his powers. And with the different plants and fruits, Steven could eat a plant of all its nutrients, then make it grow back again in an instant. It was incredible to think about. The whole land had been tamed by Steven’s hand. All the trees he must have cut down could be grown back with a kiss. All the plants he moved could be relocated in the ground. He could sustain himself forever out here.

“What do you do when you’re lonely?”

Steven hesitated, and his grip tightened on Connie’s hand. It was the first question that had come to mind, and she wished she hadn’t asked, but it would come up eventually. 

“Sometimes I paint,” he said. “I practice painting on the flat rocks, then wash them away again, and I don’t keep anything. I’ve painted you, dad, Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, Peridot, everyone I could remember. See the slabs?”

On the upper floor, leaning against the wall, were sheets of shale, smoothed out as much as possible and knapped to rectangular shapes. Portraits, a sketchbook, a moving frame of reference. Art was a distraction, but it didn’t answer Connie’s question. All she knew now was that Steven got lonely as a fact.

“But I’ve been doing meditation, and I’ve been sinking into myself, moments at a time.”

“What — wait, Steven, what does that mean?”

“Sometimes I visit the watermelon island,” Steven sighed, “sometimes I get to see the shark, or the birds, and I can see them in my dreams. Connie, I have such amazing dreams. I’ve dreamed for days at a time and woken up to my body being pink. I can live in the heads of animals and people around here. It’s not like Lars, when I took over — I let them live, and I live inside of them, and I get to watch the world through their eyes. And that’s how I’ve been living.”

“You’ve been possessing different animals? A-and people?” Connie asked.

“Not possessing! Just — observing.”

So this was how Steven was living. The man offered a reassuring smile, doing his best not to show any teeth. Connie turned away, unsure of what to make of this life. It was a new Diamond power, perhaps, or one that Steven had used before but in a much different capacity. He must be, Connie thought, living with the seasons, without track of time. He probably had no idea what day or even month it was. There was no calendar that she could see, no stone full of tally-marks. There was just life.

It bothered Connie to think of how well Steven was living. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she had hoped she would find him overwhelmed, isolated, wrapped up in his troubles and unable to escape. To be his savior was the ultimate tribute. Bringing Steven back meant that she would be a hero, his hero, and he would have a reason to stay with her. The existence he was living now wasn’t perfect, but it was filled with a different kind of life, a different energy. Every big and bird and scampering thing that passed by these woods was available to Steven. He was living symbiotically with these woods, and they had become part of him. The rustling leaves and the creaking trees spoke his name, and Connie didn’t know what to feel. Over the course of the year, Steven had become something else, something entirely himself. Both of them knew it.

“Connie, I know what you’re thinking,” Steven said softly. “It’s okay. I know I can’t stay here forever. But it’s what I need right now.”

Connie’s lip trembled. It was what he had apparently needed for over a year. This little hovel in all its beauty was despicable to Connie for all the wrong reasons. Was this jealousy? Was she truly feeling envy that a blank space could provide what so many years of friendship could not? There had to be a breaking point. Connie’s heart began to crack.

“Connie?”

“What if you’re what I need right now?”

Steven opened his mouth, but no reply came out. He tilted his head uncertainly. Connie’s eyes were welling with sudden tears again despite having cried just minutes prior. 

Of course there had been sadness inside. She hadn’t gone a day without a picture of Steven on the background of her phone, perched above her desk, floating in the back of her mind. She thought about his smile plastered on the face of her goofy floormate at that one party, when he had asked if she was single, what her plans for the future were. She saw Steven on campus in every living thing, whenever there was a glimmer of curiosity, whenever there was a genuine question asked in class, whenever a butterfly landed on the flowers in her roommate’s window box. He was everywhere, and every space reminded her that he was out here in the woods without any tether to her. She wanted to hit Steven. Connie wanted him to feel hurt, to feel regret, to suffer in one moment the way Connie’s suffering had been drawn out over the hours and weeks and months. But she couldn’t inflict that upon him.

Instead, Connie merely held the hand she was holding up to her face. Steven let himself be manipulated as she opened up his fingers, exposing his callused palm. She pressed her face into the skin and rubbed it in low circles on her cheek. Both hands needed to hold his own, so broad was the length. A small glimmer of light appeared near her eyes as Steven’s fingers twitched. When she ran the claws down her cheek, the razors that had carved up the trees were gone, and Connie only felt the rounded nubs, sanded by shapeshifting, graze her skin like glass.

“I never stopped thinking about you, Steven,” she whispered.

“I...I tried to keep you all away from my head. It’s better that way.”

“Stop that, stop that right now. I don’t care how bad you feel about hurting us. I don’t care how alone you want to be. I never stopped loving you, and you have no idea how badly that hurts.”

“No, Connie. I do.”

Both hands came up on their own to cup Connie’s cheeks. The touch was unbearably soft. Connie hiccoughed in the gentle pleasure as she held Steven by the wrists. He could do anything he wanted to her with the strength contained in those muscles, but he chose to be kind. 

“I tried to keep you all out, but I couldn’t,” Steven said. “I wanted to go back home more times than I can count. I wanted to end this all and go to Homeworld and find a way to get this fixed, but I just — I felt so bad, and so powerful, and I know there’s absolutely nothing in the world that can compare to what happened to me. I was shocked and numb and that’s why I shut myself off. But you, Connie, You keep coming into my head. I kept imagining a life with you here by my side. I painted you, and talked to you as if you were here, and it kept me from… You kept me from feeling horrible things, Connie. Never forget that.”

It was the truth, and it was mutual. There had been times in Connie’s life after Steven that she had considered letting it all go down the drain, letting her studies go to waste as she wrote and screamed and sang about the only boy she had ever loved. She had forced herself to listen to her parents and their encouragement, and she had listened to Greg and she had stuck with the Gems and talked to them about Steven’s absence. They all wished there was something to do. Maybe in the future, there would be. For now, only Connie got the privilege of touch.

She sighed into Steven’s hands and felt her skin melting into the touch. Nobody had touched Steven for so long. She was the first to embrace him, to hold him and be held, and it was beautiful.

“I love you too, Connie,” Steven said. “But you know you can’t stay.”

“I-I know. But I can be here for a little bit, right?”

Steven shifted uncomfortably, but Connie held on tightly, and the young man had to let out a sigh. Both of them knew that there was nothing he could say to truly keep Connie away, at least for the rest of the day. She had come in without a plan, but as long as she got to see Steven, that was all that mattered, and here she was.

The feeling wouldn’t leave her. Seeing him wasn’t enough. Connie inhaled his scent from his palms and felt that familiar twisting sensation in her body. She had already seen him naked for the first time, and he hadn’t acknowledged it. Even as he stood, Steven’s throat rumbled involuntarily. So much about him was bestial now. There was the swinging tip of his tail that betrayed him, as well as the darting eyes. Connie opened her own, letting go of Steven to wipe her face of her tears. He looked down at her with worry etched into his face.

“You...can stay for the night,” Steven said hesitantly. “If you have a bedroll, I can make a place for you by the fire, and I can make a fire. It’s actually pretty easy, but I’d have to go out and get some wood.”

“Isn’t that rock of yours big enough for two?”

The words came out of Connie’s mouth before she was able to discern how much Steven could pick up on the hint. She stared up with her face burning, but she kept her expression as calm as she could as she waited for a response. Steven let his mouth hang open for a moment as blood rushed to his own face. He shifted uncomfortably, looking down at himself, then at his hands, and finally back to Connie’s face.

“Do you, um, want to sleep with me?” he asked.

Each word rolled off his tongue like it was the first time he had said it in his life. He must have been taught about euphemisms, but it had been a while since he had actually spoken to another human being. Words to him were rusty, and Connie could see the gears inside of his head squeaking to get the sentence out.

“It’s still early,” she said. “We got plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Yeah! Yes. I… Okay.”

Steven chuckled, his voice rumbling with the laughter. His body shook whenever he made those noises, and Connie let her hand raise to the breadth of his chest. As soon as she touched his skin, Steven froze, and his hands opened as if he wanted to grab her and throw her off. He couldn’t resist, and he merely breathed. Connie pressed her flat palm against the man’s thick pectoral. Truly, Steven had embraced the lifestyle of a bear. His diet was almost completely plant-based, but it was so abundant that he probably couldn’t help but gorge himself whenever he wanted. That was the magic of it all.

The musculature underneath was just like how Steven must have imagined himself. A medium layer of fat covered every inch of Steven’s body, making the already magically altered muscles stand out even more. His torso was covered in dark hair, making him look even more wild, and Connie could feel its coarseness underneath her fingers. She raised her left hand and touched the side of Steven’s stomach. His belly had stayed consistent, barrel-shaped and thick, rounded over the cusp of his groin. The embedded gemstone shone in the sunlight, glistering in between his body and Connie’s. Her hand sunk into his flesh, and she held Steven’s body captive in his own awkwardness. He couldn’t begin to move.

“Even like this?”

His voice was hoarse, and Connie looked up in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to sound this miserable, and yet he was on the verge of crying again. He moved his massive paws to cover up where Connie was touching him, pressing her hands into his skin even more. The warmth was perfect, and Steven trembled slightly. 

“I-I don’t understand,” he said, swallowing his words. “I look awful. I’m an animal, Connie, I… I look like some freak, a creature, I’m…”

Connie shushed him softly, curling her fingers into his sensitive skin. It was enough to make Steven open his mouth in a gentle gasp, uncertain and unconfident. The truth was that Connie didn’t understand it herself, but questioning it would only lead to uncomfortable answers. Steven’s hulking form was still Steven, no matter what he looked like. The scars were part of him now. The skin, the tail, and the spikes all added to the boy she had grown up with. He stared down at her with his perfect, confused eyes and sighed deeply.

“I think you’re beautiful,” Connie whispered.

“Not as beautiful as you.”

He tried to smile. Connie didn’t know if he was saying it just to say it, or if the genuine nature of his words just came out regardless of what he spoke, and it didn’t matter. She always knew what he thought of her. Steven’s crush had turned on from the moment he saw Connie, and she had always known in the back of her head. Now was the first time they could be alone together, truly alone, with both of them knowing what they wanted from each other.

Steven took a breath. He was about to risk something; Connie knew his tells. He opened up his hands, releasing Connie before he made one swift motion underneath her arms. The woman’s head rushed as Steven lifted her into the air effortlessly, staring her in the face. She dangled there with a gasp, then allowed herself to be pulled into Steven’s chest as he adjusted his grip. One of his hands came and supported Connie’s back, and the other reached underneath to gently bend her at the waist, until she was sitting with her legs wrapped around the man and his hand cradling her backside.

Even though he was no larger than he had been at his biggest, he was still a massive man, and Connie felt almost lightheaded as she was held in his grasp. The sensation of being raised without a care, like her weight was nothing, made her heart pound in her chest. The gentle grip of those monstrous fingers was enough to make her want to grab Steven and copy his animal noises, just to express some iota of the feeling inside.

Instead, she merely held Steven by the shoulders, and the two rocked together, looking into each other’s eyes. It was Connie that initiated the kiss; waiting for Steven to stop staring at her would have taken all day.

His lips parted to meet her own, just barely, just cautiously. From the depths of his belly, a satisfied groan came up into Connie’s mouth, like he was purring as he held her. Hoisted above the ground, the young woman squeezed Steven’s torso, digging the tips of her fingers into his sore flesh as she opened her mouth to him. The curl of their lips on each other was like the seed of a new fruit unfurling into the soil. Connie breathed in his feral nature, inhaled the sensation of wildness he was trying to keep back. His muscles steadied as he held her, as they kissed, one hand stroking her shoulderblade and the other squeezing her ass. Steven made no more excuses with his motions, sucking and opening his mouth to kiss Connie even more as his soft claws dug into her shorts. She felt the power behind his motion, and even more so the power he had to hold back. Her tongue slid out to play along the rim of Steven’s lower lip, and beneath her touch Steven shook like he was in a hurricane, moaning unapologetically into his lover’s body. The moan passed from his belly to his hands to his own mouth, where Connie felt the thickness of his wet tongue stretch to meet her. The muscle did its best not to overwhelm her. Connie let it inside, and sucked on Steven’s tongue hungrily. It was the taste she had been missing all her life. It was raw, the taste of passion, the taste of her own heart’s corruption, the taste of disobedience.

The separation happened naturally, like a sheet of glacial ice breaking away from the mainland. Connie let her lips slide off of Steven’s tongue, and his head remained in place as the girl leaned back into his grasp. She could feel his hand shaking as it held her underneath. 

“Is this what you want?” Steven whispered.

“I’ve always wanted this,” Connie said. “Ever since I knew what this feeling was, Steven, I-I’ve never felt like this for anyone but you.”

“Even though I’m...me?”

He would never let himself go, and it hurt Connie to watch. He was monstrous, but in the monstrosity there was a new kind of beauty, and the power of Steven’s soul was enough to make the young woman feel light-headed. The raw energy that coursed underneath his skin was as strong as the sun, as terrible as an atom bomb. It was magic. Connie could never express how much she was in love with the magic, and how much more this fantastic body made her want him that much more. He was a creature of pure beauty, through fang and scale, because of his deformities and not despite them.

One day, he might become human again, and Steven would still be the one she loved. For now, Connie closed her eyes and raised her hands to Steven’s cheeks, her thumbs grazing over the tusks that jutted out from Steven’s mouth. The young man frowned with his little underbite, as if the answer was still confusing.

“You are so _fucking_ hot right now,” Connie breathed.

She felt a wave of self-doubt, as she had since she was a child, but the swearing helped, especially since there was nobody else around to judge her for it. Steven looked at her with shocked eyebrows. It dawned on Connie that he had never heard her use such immodest language, and the little thrill that ran through her was consistent with the thrill that made her kiss Steven in the first place. This kind of intense arousal could only come from love. Connie knew this in her heart of hearts, and she ached for the feeling as much as she reveled in it.

“Wow. Um. I feel like we should talk about this.”

“Steven, I understand if you don’t feel the same way, and — it’s stupid, and it’s reckless, but I’ve been waiting for so long, and now you’re here and you’re holding me and I’m feeling so many things that I’m going to explode, a-and it’s all coming out —”

“I didn’t think you’d feel that way at all! Connie, I love you, I’ve always loved you, but with everything that comes after that, I-I didn’t know what to say…”

“What...do you mean, everything that comes after.”

The heat underneath her hands made Connie open her eyes as she watched Steven glance down. For a hopeful moment, she imagined he was looking at her chest, and the pinkness did linger there, but his gaze was situated lower. Connie understood. There was only a leafy skirt in the way of the answer. She had already seen everything. She had seen the heft, the bulbous head peeking out from its hood, the inhuman thickness. Even if nothing came of this, the sight enough could satisfy her in her lonely moments back at school.

“You know,” Steven mumbled, the edge of a nervous grin appearing on his face.

Connie couldn’t for the life of her pinpoint the moment where she found Steven physically attractive. In an uncertain gray area, her brain had allowed her to feel that way about people, and out of all the men and women who passed through her head only Steven stuck. A crush was a crush, and she could recognize that feeling from childhood in an instant. Sexual arousal was entirely different. Connie only asked herself the question for the moment before letting it pass by. They were both of age. They were both of sound mind and sound body.

Steven’s knowledge of sex was uncertain, but he was Greg’s child, after all. Mr. Universe was an honest man who had taught Steven just about everything he needed to know, and besides that fact Connie also couldn’t imagine the Gems teaching Steven about human anatomy. The only thing they might have mentioned was Rose’s womb, what she had to do to make Steven gestate. Everything beyond that they didn’t have to care about. Clearly, they knew he had human anatomy, considering they forced him to wear clothes. Connie wondered what the Gems thought about organic structures, about the intricacies of the body. There was probably an interest, but none of them seemed to be keen on emulating it. Steven didn’t have to.

“Do you want to try it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Steven breathed. “Yes, absolutely, uh. Just a little.”

“I can do just a little. Just a little is fine.”

They had their hands, they had kissing, and Connie had a rod in her arm that said anything more that happened would be fine. The only question was where to go from here. Steven and Connie exchanged awkward smiles, a shared giggle with two remarkably different pitches.

“Let me down. I want to take my backpack off.”

Steven lowered Connie to the ground obediently. The girl steadied herself on shaking feet, leaning into Steven’s body. It was easier to touch him now that they understood each other. And she loved the touch, how it felt to get that catharsis after so many years. Steven used his hands to keep Connie upright, shifting his hips awkwardly away. A leaf skirt could only hide so much. 

“Is this...your first time, with anyone?” Steven asked. “It’s okay if it’s not! I-I was thinking, you know, you could have… It wouldn’t be weird, you know, to meet someone else, for you to…”

“I’ll be fine, Steven.”

She didn’t want to tell him that this was indeed her first experience with another living breathing being. Somehow, it gave a gravitas to the situation that Connie didn’t want to handle right now. All she wanted was the pleasure she had been wishing for since her first awakening, since the first time she had reached into her underwear beneath the sheets and Steven’s name had come into her mouth unprompted.

“Will you be fine?” Connie said. “This is — I know you weren’t expecting me.”

Steven paused, then chuffed in laughter.

“Maybe I wasn’t expecting you, but I had my dreams.”

Connie swung her backpack off as the two walked towards Steven’s encampment. She held its heft in one hand and let it dangle, as Steven’s arm raised up around her shoulder. His grip was firm. Connie recognized a kind of nervousness in his grasp, and she was starting to feel it herself. There was nothing to worry about as long as they were together. Cliche as it sounded, Connie knew she had to believe in the sentiment.

“What did you dream about?”

“I...dreamed about how it would feel. I got inside the head of animals in the spring, different mating seasons. I felt it then, but it’s not the same. But I learned about what I could.”

The man shifted uncomfortably as he spoke. It was quite a secret to divulge, and Connie tried not to be too taken aback. She wondered exactly what Steven felt and experienced when he was out of his own body. When they were Stevonnie, so many years ago on the jungle moon, Connie could still remember the experience of Pink Diamond’s memories. However real or fake they were, it remained true that Stevonnie had felt everything. They had experienced the time, the physicality, the hot anger and the sense of rejection. Steven now knew how the wildlife felt at different times, throughout their sexual experiences. Connie wondered what it was like to be an insect, to be a spider with thousands of eggs, whether or not Steven had taken both male and female sides of mammalian intercourse. Being out of control of his own body must have been another experience entirely, to voluntarily give up control like that. 

But that was what Connie was ready to do. Her body would be given to Steven, as his would be given to her. The transaction couldn’t be equal, but it could be done together. Connie wracked her brain for the best analogy, the best mental preparation. And there was none that came to mind. Sex was foreign to her outside of her own head. All the hands-on experience she had was solo. Steven’s experience was completely unknowable to humans. 

What were they going to do? Connie swallowed as they stepped underneath the ceiling and the smell of dried fruit wafted over them. The moss bed looked soft, constantly overgrown. The indentation of Steven’s curled form was present in the center of the stone. It looked like a smoothly polished bean; the beast must have spent hours, days carving it to perfection. The calluses on Steven’s hands must have come from all the time he spend alone here. His skin was hewn from hardship.

“You don’t have to dream anymore,” Connie murmured, dropping her bag by the rock.

It was Steven’s turn to gulp. Connie put one hand on the bed and looked back, hoping she didn’t look too anxious. Steven looked as though Connie could turn into dust at any moment, as if she was a figment of his imagination. She climbed onto the shadow of the bed and settled into the moss. So much of it must have grown through his powers. Some of it must have grown through his tears.

“I’m not sure what to do,” he said softly.

Wherever they began, they had to start it together. There was no room for errant maligning of the other’s feelings. They did this together, or not at all. Connie’s heart was pounding. Thankfully, it was pounding with want, with grace, with something fused to her nerves. For a second, she forgot the word for ‘excitement,’ and she smiled at her own folly up at Steven. If only he knew how much she was feeling. Maybe he could, if he slept and possessed her. But that was another time, another side to their future.

There had to be a future. Connie wouldn’t have come here without the hope of the future. She could stay and eat fruit and make bread and live and love with Steven here. Connie brushed her hair out of her eyes. But in time, she would have to go back. She’d always have to go back.

For the afternoon, though, they were here. Steven clambered up awkwardly, huffing with heavy animal breaths as he blocked out the light. The silhouette of his horns against the lit forest outside was enough to make Connie lie motionless. He seemed even bigger when he was looming over her. The sheer size struck something in Connie’s body and soul, and she shuddered against the moss.

“Take off my clothes,” she whispered. 

Steven’s hands came obediently down to the button of her shorts. It was an order, an order he could follow without a second thought, considering he was hardly clad himself. The soft claws tried to run the plastic through its hole, but even in the glow of Steven’s gemstone the task was impossible. Connie watched Steven do his best with his giant paws to save the fabric. Beads of sweat started to run down the length of Steven’s arm as he worked. The operation, so simple for slender human fingers, was almost impossible.

“S-sorry, Connie.”

“Do whatever you need to do.”

He looked up uncertainly. Those giant black eyes were Connie’s weakness. She nodded shakily and let her arms stretch above her head, curling them in private pleasure. Her eyes closed and her muscles shook as she felt the grip of Steven’s hands on her waistband. The sound of the cloth tearing echoed through the cave, combined with the grunt of exertion. Connie felt the shorts torn from her legs, opening her up to the air and to her lover. The sudden rush was the strongest thing she had felt in her life.

The boy’s silence made her open her eyes again. As Steven pulled the rest of the ruined shorts out from underneath Connie, his eyes were fixed between her legs, his mouth closed tightly. In the bowl of the bed, Connie watched him and said nothing. This was his own exploration, and he needed to go through with this himself.

No, that wasn’t true. Steven needed help just like she did. They had to take action in turns. Connie sat upright, making Steven scoot backwards as she reached with shaking hands to raise her shirt over her head. Sweat and tension kept the fabric tight to her body as she pulled up to reveal the sports bra and its tautness over her chest. She threw the hiking shirt to the side onto the tiles. Beneath Steven’s crouched form, Connie kicked her shoes off one at a time, pushing them to tumble down to the stones below. Steven reached down, locking eyes with Connie as he pinched the tips and pulled the socks off of her feet, crumpling them together into a wad that joined the earth.

It was an easy snip to remove the leafy kilt. He could always rejuvinate it later. Steven threw his only clothing away as he climbed up to meet Connie. The young woman scooted over as she could as Steven, once more naked, crawled over his mossy bed and unfurled his body next to his best friend. The heat from his body was more than Connie could handle. She felt a weight on her leg, and she knew instantly what it was.

Steven’s erection was as thick as her wrist, and growing tenderly against her skin. His dark, meaty head peeked out as the foreskin slowly unfurled with the motions. The girth was consistent and solid, as solid as Steven himself. A small purple swirl of corrupted skin climbed up the base, but the tanned skin around the shaft was as human as it could be. Connie wasn’t as averse to the touch as her nerves might have suggested before. Now that she was here with Steven, all their touches were meaningful, all their insecurities propped up on each other’s strengths. Steven’s belly rose and fell as he breathed against Connie. The gemstone seemed to pulse with domestic energy.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Me neither, Steven. But it is.”

“Can I, um…”

He gestured towards the woman’s chest. Connie nodded, and the man slid and bent his head down to inhale the scent of the day. His nose pressed into the fabric, and Connie felt the rush as he nuzzled between her breasts. Steven’s mouth opened to kiss. With the bra in the way, Steven growled and turned his head. The tusk glistened for a moment before he lowered its sharp edge to the bottom of the elastic and jerked his head upwards. The fabric tore instantly, the blade almost grazing the edge of Connie’s skin. She let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. It took no effort for him to reach down and tear the rest away, pulling the ruined bra from Connie and disposing of it without a thought. He turned and growled under his breath.

“You are the most beautiful,” Steven said gently.

Before Connie could respond, Steven had rolled so that he was on top, one hand on either side of Connie’s body. His face nestled between her newly bare breasts, and when he breathed, Connie knew exactly what he was thinking. It was the same thought she had about this sensation, the warm breath on her sternum, the gargantuan man imposing his weight on her. She bent her arms to hold Steven by the base of his horns, her fingertips curling into his hair. 

What was the thought? It was reality, undiluted. Connie closed her eyes and leaned her nose down to breathe in Steven’s wild curls. He no longer smelled like a human. Connie was brought back to when they were children, when he would hug Connie for just a second longer than usual, when she would embrace him back, and he smelled like fresh soap and flowers. Now, he smelled like a wild creature, but it was still so unique to him. Steven’s musk was the scent of a lone mountain, the oldest forest in the state, fresh buds in torn-up earth planted by no hands. She knew his smell from all the walks she had taken in the woods in the summer as a child. Now that she was grown-up, Connie wondered if the woods would awaken something in her whenever she wandered out.

The cold tusks against her skin were imposing, but Connie had to keep her head flush to the moss to avoid the horns as Steven moved his head. She held on loosely as the man moved his mouth up the side of her right breast, kissing the skin up to the nipple. The teeth that held onto her nub were sharp, but so careful, as Steven tenderly suckled around them. Connie felt him tugging so gently, playing with his tongue around the dark circle and sending spirals of electricity radiating around her muscles. The horns raised and lowered as Steven moved to the other side, hungry in his exploration.

He had no idea what he was doing, but he knew how to make a body feel good. And that was all he had to go on. Steven’s arms spread the moss as he held on to Connie’s torso, thumbs rubbing softly underneath each breast. His hands dwarfed her. Every part of him was bigger, stronger, simply more. As he rubbed his stubble across his lover’s breasts, his tail raised and waved back and forth. Connie could feel his hips shifting near her ankles.

“Steven… I want you to try something.”

The man looked up with his eyes wide and eager. There was that feeling again, the sense between animalism and childlike wonder. Connie almost laughed at her partner with how wound up her nerves were.

“Anything for you,” he rumbled.

“I want you to, um… I want you to use your mouth. Down there.”

Steven’s entire body seemed to tense with the notion. It occurred to Connie that Steven really didn’t know anything about sex. While she was in college, the young woman had heard enough stories, good and bad, from friends who were far more open than she was. She had asked the experienced people what it was like, what felt good, and almost everyone was open with her. Connie wondered if they took pity on her in some way, if they thought of her as some pure and virginal child. If they only knew the thoughts she had had about Steven, the things she had researched late at night. She wasn’t innocent at all, and who was going to judge her for it? Steven was too busy turning red.

“I-I can, I will,” Steven said. “Do I — do I kiss it? Does my tongue...go inside?”

“Did you know what you were doing when you kissed me?”

“No, not really, I…”

“I don’t care what you do, Steven. I just want you to try.”

The man closed his mouth and nodded, snorting softly. Connie pushed and wriggled further up on the bed of moss as Steven slid down. She was about to ask him to take her panties off like he had done her bra when Steven pressed his face against her and inhaled sharply. The cotton felt immediately moistened with his breath, soaked through with his curiosity.

A wave of self-consciousness shook Connie from collar to groin. Before she could protest her own desire, Steven had already thrown up a hand and gripped the front of her underwear.

“a- _AH_!” 

Connie covered her face as Steven tore off her last remaining garment in a swift motion. It stung her hips where the material was shredded away. Steven threw it to the side, ignoring it completely. Connie let the darkness of embarrassment come over her. The sudden outburst was involuntary, loud enough to echo around the base of the little hovel. Steven’s motions paused underneath her, like a kingfisher above a stream. The woman could feel her chest rising and falling on the cool rock.

What did Steven like? What had he thought about in the months of isolation? His thoughts of sex were totally alien to Connie, and in her guidance, she hadn’t considered how this might hurt him. She was introducing concepts to him that had never been explained or expressed, an invasive procedure that she had desired but that he had never seen. She couldn’t look at him, but connie could feel him studying her genitals, watching and breathing and sniffing. When he lowered his head to her, he would feel what she licked off her fingers during her nights alone. Was it even palatable? 

The first kiss was so gentle. Lips met lips, and Connie forced herself to stretch her hands above her head. The girl spread her thighs open to accomodate for her lover’s head; it felt as large as a buffalo’s and twice as shaggy. Even though the tusks were far to the side, Connie could feel their coldness near her thighs. The same weapons that had torn open her sports bra were nuzzled near her femoral artery. She wondered if Steven knew how easily he could hurt her. But of course he did, and he always had.

Any shame that Connie felt about the process faded as Steven turned his head askew and opened his mouth. The tongue against her folds was wet and warm and curious, prodding and sliding up and down the length of the interior. He was trying to probe every inch of the pussy, like he was reading a poem, his tongue lingering on each nerve like a new metaphor. Connie felt her muscles shake with the new feeling. Fingers were nothing compared to this.

Steven reached up and curled his forearms around Connie’s thighs to keep them in place. A plaintive moan burst from Connie’s mouth as she was pulled down forward. Steven’s growls thrummed through her body, a new animal hunger. This was his territory, and he was enjoying himself immensely. The width of Steven’s lips covered the whole of the slit. He opened his mouth to suck, inhuman teeth pressed against the sides of her organ.

His suction reminded Connie of a starving zoo creature, a tamarin or a lorikeet with its tongue scraping the nectar from a plastic bowl. The eagerness was there, but the technique was not. Stubble scratched her and tugged at the little pubic hair she kept, and as lovely as the eating was Connie winced. She reached between her legs and grabbed Steven by his hair.

“S-slow!” she hissed. “Slow down, Steven, just...lick gently, be gentle.”

The black eyes opened and stared at her. In the dim light, Connie watched the pink of the iris expand in understanding. Steven locked eye contact with the young woman and relaxed his jaw, opening his mouth wide. The whites of his teeth glistened as his tongue started to glow.

Connie knew the muscle was wide before, but she could only stare as it grew and unfurled, coiling out of Steven’s mouth like a snake. He kept staring, watching his lover’s reaction as the tongue met the pussy once more. A wet, sticky sound filled Connie’s ears, the moist organs touching each other. Steven ran his tongue up the whole length of the lips, from Connie’s entrance to her hood, warm and sensual, just to get the taste. She had to let herself fall against the moss as the sensation overwhelmed her. His spit tingled on her body, healing wounds that didn’t exist. He was still magic, after all. The initial devouring had left her feeling brand new, and the return of the tongue did even more to drive her ecstacy. 

With a satisfied snort, Steven did as he was told. His lips came down slowly and his tongue rolled slowly, squirming into every fold it could find and moistening Connie to pleasure. The woman felt him tasting her, pleasuring as he was pleasured. Clearly Steven was enjoying himself. Connie could feel him swallow as he lapped up the taste of her body. There was no shame here, and there was no going back.

It was everything that she had wanted. The feeling of a lover, the sensation of his tongue, and Steven’s presence all came together. Connie almost felt like crying from the culmination of it all. The hours she had spent away from Steven were worth it for this meeting. Sex felt good with him and only him. The urges she had felt hadn’t emerged until she was sure it was this awkward half-alien creature that she wanted. Even now, in his cursed form, Steven was the most handsome man she had ever met. His horns glinted in the dark of the makeshift cave. The blades on his elbows scraped and dug against the rock. Connie could hear the thumping of his tail, the crystal protrusions clacking against the tile.

She could never be ready for him. As she wilted and writhed on the moss, Connie finally accepted the fact that she could never have prepared herself enough for the realities of sex, and that was okay. The feelings that rushed through her were building faster than she could apprehend them in her mind. Steven’s mouth, slow and steady, was working its way to her heart. Connie didn’t realize the orgasm was upon her until it had already built up. She covered her mouth and tensed her legs.

Could Steven feel this as well? With all his empathy, he must have felt the tender warmth as Connie came from his tongue, some contraction, some pussy motion that was emphasized around his tongue. The clitoris, wet from saliva, pulsed with pleasure, sending a throbbing new sensation all down Connie’s lips and pelvis. Her first orgasm with another person, and her monstrous partner’s pleasure combined — there was nothing better. Connie let her breath out and grabbed Steven by the horns. Her hands trembled with her legs as she panted out her pleasure, the breath finally exiting her body as the pulse receded, ready to emerge when she needed it.

Steven raised his head with the grab, curious and courteous. A wet trail lingered from where his lips and Connie’s groin had been joined. He was smiling, lopsided and charismatic, attempting to be handsome without realizing he didn’t have to try. Clearly, he had been enjoying himself. He licked his lips with his enormous tongue, and Connie saw just how lizard-like it was when he had shifted it. His eyes darted down, and his smile faltered.

“Am I doing okay?” he said hoarsely.

“Y-yes. Yes, Steven. Come up here.”

The man released Connie’s legs and crawled up in a flash until he was on top of the young woman’s body. Still dizzy from her climax, she could only smile and attempt to relax as Steven curled his arms underneath her shoulders. The indentation of his gemstone pressed against her, and further down she could feel the warmth of his cock pulsating with hot energy on her skin. He had clearly enjoyed working with his mouth.

“Connie,” Steven sighed, “I love you so much. I know this isn’t the best time, but just… I didn’t know how good this would be.”

“Sex is...nice, yes, but —”

“No no, the sex is — I mean being with you. Letting you in. Just showing my love. I was so scared of hurting you, and I still am. But I’m...less scared.”

“Oh God, Steven, you have nothing to be scared for. I love you too. I’d tell you if something was wrong, or if...something happened. But nothing’s going to happen when we’re together.”

“How long can you stay here?” Steven said. “I don’t care about the fence. I don’t care about anything else. I just want you here.”

Connie hadn’t heard that kind of desperation in Steven’s voice in years but she recognized it in an instant. Even in this husky, guttural intonation, it was Steven through and through. Connie was taken aback for a moment as she stared up at her lover, the monster, the scarred, and felt an overwhelming roil of guilt. She couldn’t stay for long. There were classes she had to get back to and school to finish, people to see, human appointments. This was not a human existence. The longer she stayed, the more Connie knew she would be drawn into this wild world, and the harder it would be to return. What an life, to bathe in the cold stream, to spend the winter under a diamond dome, to live without electricity and internet and medicine, and to need none of it. They could make their own music, and they could make love. Her birth control would last long enough, and she could always go back to get fixed up. But she wouldn’t. Connie knew she wouldn’t be able to stay forever. A naked life like this was just not how she was meant to be. Was this wildness how Steven was meant to be, either? Only he could answer that question, and Connie feared his response.

She leaned up and gave him a small kiss, pulling him down by the horns. She stroked around the base of the protrusions, trying to ignore the plaintive fear in every one of Steven’s movements.

“I’ll stay for as long as I can,” Connie whispered. Maybe it would be true.

In her head, Connie imagined Steven in her dorm room, filling up the entirety of her little plastic mattress with his body. Even in her old bedroom, he would have to duck to fit under the ceiling. The years had been kind to his growth while being unkind to his body. Even in a hotel room, a wedding suite, his claws and spines would tear up the wallpaper and shred the sheets. Wherever they went, Steven would destroy things, as he could so easily destroy her. Connie would never admit how much she loved Steven’s power. He wouldn’t know what to do with that information; he was already so fearful.

He wasn’t so fearful that Connie’s white lie wasn’t pleasurable. The kiss was enough to make him shudder. Steven raised himself to his knees and pushed off the mossy bed, raising his groin until his penis came up with a heavy thud on top of Connie’s abdomen. 

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong?”

Immediately, Connie knew he was going to have to shapeshift. Her insides could only take so much, and the face that the tip of Steven’s shaft nearly touched the bottom of her sternum was a warning sign. The thickness she could maybe handle, but no, she was brave, not stupid. Had it grown bigger? Subconsciously, Steven must have made himself enormous, almost comically so. There was no way this was a natural phenomenon, and Connie almost laughed, covering her mouth with one wavering hand.

“Is it...weird?” Steven said. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No! No no, nothing — Steven, it’s way too big. It’s not going to fit.”

“How big is normal? I’m sorry, I thought you’d like it…”

“Start small.”

Steven closed his eyes, his face burning red as his organ tingled with light. Connie felt it slide down her belly, inch by inch, until it was about half its original length. These changes were almost permanent, Connie realized. Steven’s shapeshifting powers were becoming as strong as any Gem’s, even stronger that he could control it. He had been disciplining himself.

“And can you make it a little, uh,” Connie said, “less wide? Don’t feel bad, I like it big, but…”

_But it’s my first time._ It shouldn’t matter, Connie thought to herself, and yet it did in her heart, in her nervous little human brain. The skin shrunk in pink sparkles as Steven complied. Connie wished she could have seen what Steven’s average was, what he would have been like had he remained human. It wouldn’t have mattered then, or at least they could find a way around whatever size Steven was naturally. 

Connie watched the outline of Steven’s horns against the sunlight. A mote of brightness shone through them, a break in opacity. This was Steven’s new natural. Everything that wasn’t corrupted was mutable. The thought jarred Connie in a way she hadn’t expected. The only natural thing about Steven were the inhuman parts, like his tail, his gemstone, his horns and blades. He could potentially change his facial structure or his body’s recognizable shape, bending bones and tendons until he was unrecognizable. He didn’t have to be Steven anymore, but he chose this. The young woman didn’t know what to think about that. She wished she could just turn her brain off.

“Connie?”

He was looking down at her. Connie blinked back to reality. Her lover’s clawed hands were stroking along her thighs, curled around the dark skin. Steven tilted his head and attempted a smile, raising one bushy eyebrow. 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Steven murmured. “I-I want to, but I don’t want to if you don’t want to.”

“I know, Steven. It’s okay.”

The man moved slowly as he raised up Connie’s ankles, sliding his hands down her legs and holding them in place. He broke eye contact to shift his hips back, maneuvering Connie like she weighed nothing. Her body weight was indeed nothing compared to the rocks he had hewn to make his home, the giant stone upon which they laid now. Connie allowed herself to be manipulated, raising her hands above her head in mock submission.

“Do I...push it between? Just like — in there?”

“T-the hole’s lower. It’s close to the bottom. Be gentle.”

“I will. I will…”

Connie kept her leg up as Steven let go of one leg to hold onto his own shaft. Experience with small vibrators and single fingers was nothing compared to the thickness he was about to put inside of her. The girl couldn’t help but be nervous, but all she had to do was not look. Steven could navigate by touch.

She felt the head sliding against her clit, still moistened and sticky from the fervent tonguing earlier. Steven pushed it further down, and Connie could feel the pressure he was restraining, the amount he was holding back. It was the feeling of humanity. The beast that had tackled her before would not have been so kind. Was it kindness, or necessity? He was ready to tear her apart then, and now, he was about to enter her as softly as a sunbeam entering a window.

His fingers pulled the skin back and exposed the head fully, bare skin pushing into Connie softly. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady. The hole stretched around him readily, only because she was forcing herself to relax. Her heart hammered in her chest as she felt the muscles expand and the entrance welcome Steven inside. The warmth turned to heat and the heat grew to an inferno. Steven groaned above her as his cock pushed through and spread Connie’s lips apart. She could feel its thickness as it pulsed deeper, so slowly but so steadily.

Steven’s shaking hand came back to her leg, and his hips tilted forward. Connie arched her back with the jolt of pleasure that ran through her body, an all-encompassing flow of new pleasure and new sensation. The base of Steven’s belly edged over her groin, a hairy stomach meeting the trimmed musculature. His gemstone was shining brightly as it always had. Steven’s whole body quivered as he pushed inside as far as he could manage. Connie felt a deep pressure, the entirety of the man inside of her, touching every nerve of her organ. The young woman reached down and massaged her abdomen, digging her fingertips around the curve of her thighs near Steven’s hips.

They looked at each other in the shadows. Steven’s eyes glowed, wide and unyielding, pained with the uncertainty of this new situation. Connie could stare at him for hours. She gripped her skin and squeezed the muscles of her leg. 

“Are you okay?” the man whispered.

“Yeah,” Connie said, her voice weak. “...kiss me.”

He obliged. The man let go of his lover and walked his hands across the moss until he was almost laying down. The pressure pushed him around inside Connie, and it was all she could do not to squirm as he got on his elbows above her. Her legs curled up, squeezing around Steven’s sides as she adjusted. Because of his gargantuan form, Steven had to keep his back curved over Connie to lower his face down. She closed her eyes as his lips met hers once more, and she could taste his forced certainty. The pressure of his mouth betrayed the same confidence that Connie had to instill in herself in order to not feel overwhelmed. She could tell, or at lease she hoped, that he was as terrified as she was.

But there was nothing to be scared about now. The thrusts were slow, and the warmth of the kiss was enough to keep Connie’s head from swimming. Steven was almost drooling as he parted his lips. Connie brought both hands up to Steven’s face and ran her tongue over his sharp teeth, sucking him down. He was hungry. His only fear was of hurting her, and the only way he could hurt her now was from overindulgence. Steven growled into her mouth again, and Connie’s body reacted as though he had tongued her again.

The animal inside him aroused her. Connie would never forgive herself. She hated the memories of laying awake with idle hands. Dreams of the claws at the end of Steven’s fingers had turned into a reality, as they folded around her back now and slid along her skin to hold her close. The motions of her hands were nothing compared to the gentle pulses as Steven began to thrust with his whole body, tail and all. Her thumbs brushed over her lover’s tusks before she raised her arms above his back. Connie welcomed Steven’s tongue into her mouth again. She hugged as much of his torso as her human arms were able, the fingertips grazing his row of crystal spines.

No child on a beach could have dreamed of this moment. This was their first real kiss, their first sexual contact, and nothing could have prepared Connie for the feeling of his purple skin and the sensation of his girth inside. She could feel every inch of Steven’s cock, inches he had made through force of will, a manifestation of manliness. The Steven she knew was immutable, but his body could change on a whim.

She broke the kiss suddenly. A mixture of their saliva ran down the side of her cheek. They panted in each other’s faces. Steven didn’t stop the rocking of his hips.

“Make it wider.”

“W-what?”

“Wider, Steven!”

Connie grit her teeth as her wish came true. A pink glow from below was all she needed to tell her that he was working, and the stretch was just as she had asked for. She had no idea how big he was now, but Connie’s head pushed into the moss and her spine twisted from the feeling. The muscles in her legs shook as her body was forced to adjust. She could feel the hole widen just for him, on her own whim. Steven grunted weakly. 

What the hell was she doing to herself? But Connie already knew. The monster was wrecking her. The creature she had sought after, the creature that was fucking her, was all she had wanted since she was a child. Perverse fantasies and indulgences couldn’t compare to the reality of the beast. She could make that reality anything she wanted, and she wanted to feel him. Three years, three years had passed, and the love of her life had been stolen by his own corruption. She wanted to feel him more than anything.

“Do you love me, Steven?”

“Yes! Y-yes, Connie, I love you!”

“Do you trust me?”

“Hr _gh_! I-I trust you.”

How she could even speak through this was a mystery. The words came through like she was possessed, like she had been taken over by a more confident woman, by a woman who knew what she was doing. Connie’s nervous energy came out in her legs, in the way that she rubbed them against Steven, her skin burning with newfound energy. She felt him cradle her in confusion, eyes darting, wondering what he was doing wrong. She couldn’t begin to tell him what horrible thoughts were running through her head. The darkness beckoned her to stay. In the pools of Steven’s eyes, she drowned in the notion of being filled like this every day, every hour, of his girth training her into physical submission. Another Connie could have let Steven ruin her. A different girl would have basked at the beast’s feet.

But she let the desires dry up. Steven couldn’t live like that. All this time, he was here because he hated how he had acted, how he looked, how inhuman things had become. Connie could never talk to him about her twisted fetishes when it meant confronting him like this. The woman closed her eyes again and inhaled deeply, forcing a center. This was enough. Feeling the monster inside of her was enough. Steven, Steven was enough.

“Hold me down,” she said softly, “and _fuck_ me.”

Her arms fell back as she opened her eyes again. She opened and closed her hands, stretching out her wrists. Steven looked at her uncertainly, but he spread out his legs and pushed, just to gauge Connie’s reaction. The corner of Connie’s vision blurred. He was so deep inside of her, and his thickness moved all her organs whenever he thrust, like a thousand hands were massaging each nerve ending inside her pussy.

With the utmost caution, Steven raised his hands from around Connie and got into a sort of push-up position. His little throaty chirrups as he shifted made the woman feel like smiling, but she kept her face pensive as she felt each movement. Connie bent her elbows and laid the back of her arms on the moss. Steven took one paw at a time and moved them to grab his lover and hold her to the mossy stone.

The force was just enough. Connie rolled her body and pretended to struggle; even with the gentlest restraint, she could do nothing against Steven’s body weight. His belly pressed and held her to the rock, his hands gripping as lightly as he could manage to hold her. The girl opened her eyes and tried to move her hips to entice her lover. Every inch she moved, it felt like she was pulled back, plugged into place by Steven’s cock.

“Close your eyes if it’s easier.”

“No,” the man said. “No, I want to look at you.”

“Do it.”

All the strength of Steven’s legs moved back and pulled back from Connie’s pussy. The motion of the shaft tugging at her insides made Connie throw back her head, mouth open in a whine of pleasure. This was an inhuman thickness. This was a fantasy she was living, and she nearly choked on the sound of her own wordless ecstacy as Steven’s hips pushed it all the way back in. He growled in response, abandoning language as he loomed over her. Connie could barely see through it all.

The thrusts increased to a steady rhythm as Steven did what he had been told. It was both rote and organic, natural and timed. Connie knew the musician in Steven could keep a beat as he fucked, their skin beating against each other in wet smacks. Those sounds echoed over the walls of this cave, their lewdness rising with Connie’s own vocal reactions. She didn’t care that she was gasping for breath and practically squealing each time Steven slid in. His gruff grunts overrode her ears until she could only hear him over the sound of her heart beating.

She knew that all the animals he had seen had mated with their eyes open. Birds watched their partner’s plumage fall with the frantic flapping. Rabbits kept their pupils dilated in case a hawk came swooping in. Through hazy lids, Connie watched Steven’s face, and if he was anyone else she would have been terrified. The pitch-black eyes narrowed with concentration, pink pupils shining directly at her. His mouth hung open to reveal the rows of sharp teeth behind those perfect lips. A globule of drool dangled from the edge of a tusk, then fell off and broke on Connie’s cheek. Steven panted, snorted, growled so deeply Connie’s heart skipped a beat.

They could have spent an eternity together. Was she even close to another orgasm? Could she have one this way? Connie didn’t know, and she didn’t care, because the pleasure was more than enough. She knew she was fortunate to feel this way, held in her partner’s claws. Not everyone could have the satisfaction of a man like this. And nobody else on earth could have her Steven.

Eventually, she would feel his love, she knew. Connie tried to focus on his face as it bobbed up and down, in and out of her field of view. His thrusts increased enough for the slapping to be visceral and pornographic. Her muscles were sore, beaten and maybe even bruised by the force of Steven’s hips. She briefly wondered what it felt like for Steven whenever his testicles pushed against her perineum, slamming into her with each lewd motion. The image and the feeling were nothing compared to how easily the cock had opened her up and how tight things still felt. There was immense pain, all canceled out by the pleasure. 

The man was grunting with his mouth open on each thrust now. Every word of encouragement Connie tried to get out died in her throat. Steven was lost to language. The points of light Connie saw in his eyes were vibrating blurs, inhuman as they had always been. She was a slave to the sensation of him deep inside of her, raw and wonderful. Steven’s body shook and his vague noises increased in pitch, higher and more plaintive.

In her last coherent moments, Connie tried to pass the thought on to Steven, tried to encourage him to let it loose and give in like she had. Their territory was love. There was nothing else but their bodies and their sensations. Connie’s short nails dug into her palms as Steven squeezed her wrists tightly. 

She felt her eyes go black.

Her vision was clear, and her vision was of Steven on top of her, and she felt the rush of power and powerlessness flooding her brain. Steven was inside of her. This was not Stevonnie, this was not a fusion, but rather, Connie knew this was the power of the corrupted Diamond who was currently climaxing inside of her. At the moment of culmination, Steven was Connie. As she took a breath, so did he. As time slowed down in her mind, so the same happened for the man. Every fiber of pleasure she felt as she was flooded was felt inside of him, inside organs he did not possess. Steven’s nerves mirrored her own. Mechanically, his release was hot inside of her, burning her womb with seed, the release of years flowing and leaking and spurting like a geyser. Connie felt every drop flood around the cock, soaking her in stickiness. And she knew, like every animal had known, that there was someone living through her eyes. Steven’s mouth opened with hers, and he roared, roared in unknowable pleasure, a superposition of fucking and being fucked beyond human understanding. As Connie saw the monster in his voice, so did Steven. Her blackened eyes watched the man’s pleasure and confusion as his own eyes squeezed shut. It must have been overwhelming. It must have been painful. The orgasm itself must have been too much for him. He pushed as deep as he could into Connie, shaking with the same pain and pleasure she did.

Just as soon as it had happened, Connie blinked, and she was herself, and Steven was a giant sweaty mess dripping on top of her. He had stopped thrusting, and his cock was deep enough inside of her to put pressure on her farthest nerves. Connie felt the tears flowing down her cheeks. She didn’t know why she was crying. It could just as easily be from the pain as it could be from the overwhelming pleasure. Getting stretched by Steven was as much of an ordeal as seeing his face for the first time in years. It was all so much.

“Is...that...what you think of me?”

His voice was hoarse and sudden. Connie felt herself come back down to earth, difficult as it was, in time to understand what Steven was saying.

The two laid there in silence for a moment. Steven still twitched inside of Connie, still erect and soaking wet, as if he was locked into her body. His hands slid off the woman’s wrists weakly, the claws digging into the moss. Connie heard the flesh shift as his claws became sharp again. His eyes were unfocused, blinking down with no direction. Her sore legs relaxed around his purple hips. Steven’s chest heaved, but his breathing evened out, as did Connie’s. The stillness of the day was broken by the sound of two birds fighting in the trees outside, muted squawks reverberating in Steven’s clearing.

Connie didn’t have to ask how much he had seen. It had been enough, and it wasn’t fair. This was possession, involuntary but very real, a possession of her secrets. She swallowed her shame and tried to look Steven in his eyes. It wasn’t her fault she felt this way. Loving him through it all should have been enough. It wasn’t fair. Connie felt a pang of rage at her own humanity, her inability to possess Steven right back and see through his eyes. Even Stevonnie couldn’t do that. 

“Steven, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

“I love you.”

“I know. I still love you too.”

The man heaved a sigh and blinked once, staring Connie in the face. She opened her mouth to apologize again when Steven moved his hips. All the seed he had pumped inside of her moved with the motion, and Connie closed her eyes, mouth opening in reflex. There was still pleasure in being emptied.

Steven’s hand came to her throat. Her eyes shot open again to stare at him in panic, and he was inches from her face, glowering and glowing. His wrist rested on top of her windpipe as his thumb and forefingers squeezed her cjaw. The massive hand sunk into the muscles of Connie’s face. Claws started to push into her mandible, just enough to mark her and make her whine from the pressure, not enough to draw blood. The girl’s pulse pounded in her ears.

As the cock started to slide out, Steven ensured Connie was looking at him. She stared into his eyes and shook, afraid to move an inch. His hips moved backwards, and the muscles tugged, still tight, still quivering. The moss crunched under her pelvis, soaked by the leaking cum as the head finally unplugged and popped out with a visceral wetness. Connie couldn’t help but cry out from the pressure, her eyes practically bulging out of her head as Steven held her in place.

His weight and his claws were all that he needed. Now he knew everything that Connie felt, and she knew he was using that. He chuffed once, as if trying to cover up his own sensitivity, releasing his lover’s cheeks and pushing himself up again. Connie let her legs fall, the muscles relaxing for the first time. She tried to reach up and hold on to Steven’s face, to bring him back down for another kiss. 

Connie’s fingers slipped on Steven’s collarbone as the man rolled over and sat on the edge of his bed. His spiny back was turned to Connie. She wanted to get up and hug him from behind, but even if she had the strength to move, she would be impaled. Steven’s tail swirled out from behind him and curled to rest on top of Connie’s legs.

“What the hell,” he mumbled.

Connie wanted to cry; she wanted to feel like crying. There was some kind of shame that wracked her body, something she couldn’t place. The afterglow was not what she had expected, and she hated this feeling, but she knew she deserved it. Self-deprecation was Steven’s past, not her present. This was different. There was no way to express to Steven that she wanted to help him and love him at the same time. There were no words for this strange interim feeling, submission without submission.

The young woman raised one hand to her face and lowered the other between her legs. She was still so sensitive down there as she pushed her fingers between the lips, tenderly rubbing her clit as if to massage the rest of her emotions out. Steven had made everything sore and tingling, and when she clenched her muscles Connie could still feel him leaking out.

“Would you have loved me if I was still human?”

Connie opened her eyes and pulled her fingers down her face. Steven wasn’t looking at her.

“Yes,” she said. “You know I would.”

“So I’m not human anymore. I never was.”

“Don’t you believe that I loved you for you?”

“I was just inside of you, Connie,” Steven murmured. “I was inside your heart. I...I can’t believe you like this still. I can’t believe you think it’s _hot._ ”

There, there was a familiar kind of shame, sexual embarrassment. Connie had felt it the first time she had sat in on an open sex conversation in her dorm’s living quarters, a hot redness like she was being boiled alive.

“Is that a bad thing, that I find you attractive?” she said.

“It’s weird. Okay? I thought —”

Steven cleared his throat and looked back at Connie. His claws clenched the torn-up moss.

“I thought you were kind of taking pity on me. I was a cute kid, and a weird-looking teenager, and now? I’m a monster. You know I’m a monster.”

Connie turned her face away. She knew Steven was looking at her now, studying her. He shifted on the rock. 

“You really like it?” he asked.

“Y-yes. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Geez.”

What else was she supposed to do? Steven twisted himself until he had one leg resting up on the rock. Connie felt sticky and sweaty, unavoidably human. She could smell Steven even from here, and she wondered if his sense of smell was heightened. Her mind was projecting a lot of animalistic sensibilities onto Steven’s body, and she knew it wasn’t fair. But the way he moved, the way he curled his tail, the grunting and gasping — it was bound to the wilderness. Steven was inextricably linked to a new feral nature.

“You can’t stay here, can you.”

His hand came down and picked up the arm from Connie’s groin. Slowly, steadily, Steven moved the fingers up to his face and leaned over. Warm wetness enveloped Connie’s hand as the man sucked on the fingers she had rubbed herself with, enjoying the juices on his tongue. His lips squeezed around each digit as he pulled it back out and let it fall. Connie’s limp arm lowered to her chest. For the first time in an hour, Steven smiled. The tusks raised up on his face, and he heaved a heavy sigh as he turned his whole naked body in Connie’s direction.

When he laid down, Steven pulled Connie across the moss. His body took up the entire bed, and he needed to use it all, and Connie felt herself dragged up towards his torso like a teddy bear. The young woman said nothing. There were so many words for how she felt and no way to express them.

On her back was the most comfortable position. Steven curled on his side around her, his nudity no longer a strange sight. It had never been that unknown, only once unknowable. Connie let the man wrap his left arm around her shoulders and pull her close.

“I want to stay for the night, at least,” she said at last.

“You have my permission.”

“I —” She sighed. “Thank you.”

She didn’t feel flushed anymore. Connie had to accept a slightly cockier Steven, one who understood her intimate desires. It was jarring to think about the immediacy of what had happened and what Steven had felt. The sensation of being bred was unlike anything she had felt before. No wild animal could know pleasure like that, and Steven had felt it at the same time. Connie couldn’t help but feel a tint of jealousy. Was that her new normal?

It was still only late afternoon. The sun was starting to lower on the horizon but the warmth of the day was lingering in the air like the smell of sex. Steven would have to clean up afterwards. If they were at home, Connie knew they would be taking a shower together, washing off all the sweat and fluids. She imagined a shower big enough for the two of them, a bath and a bathroom that could fit Steven in his entirety.

They could build it, and the Gems would be so willing. The mostly-empty beach house could be renovated once more, as it had been countless times through countless disasters. This time it would be for a purpose, and the only disaster would be Steven’s absence, rectified by his welcoming home. They could transpose the garden. They could use the stone aesthetic at the beach. He could come home.

Or Connie could continue to come out here. In her heart, as she cuddled with her lover, she knew that that was the most likely scenario. Steven had made a new home here, and had honed in on a new way of living. He was apt to change and to change his mind. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he had settled in so well here. With years to create and to adjust, Steven must have loved changing the landscape. Every mark that he made on a tree was made with pleasure. The angles of this stone house were measured with the precision of a free man. This was the freest any person on earth could be, limited only by the self. And Steven had no limits.

“So what does this make us?” he whispered. 

“It makes us… That’s… I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t marry me then. Do you want to now? Now that we’ve already done this?”

“Sex isn’t — Steven, we get to decide what that means for us. I don’t want it to mean that.”

“And what does it mean, then? Hm? Why fuck me?”

“Steven!”

The young woman raised her arm to backhand Steven in the shoulder. He chuckled, knowing full well how much Connie was irritated. She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, bending her legs. 

“Why isn’t it enough that I love you?” she snapped. “It’s part of being — well, it’s part of being human. And I know that there’s human emotion inside of you. That’s why you didn’t kick me out. Because you wanted me here, just as much as I wanted to be here, and now you’re being an ass about it and I don’t know why!”

Steven raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue the point. Connie let her words out and didn’t bother feeling any shame about them. The man was, in a manner of speaking, pissing her off. But he had every right to feel a little miffed, she thought, conceding to her own fetishes. How strange it must have been to look at yourself and hate yourself enough to go into exile, only to find out you were monumentally attractive to your old flame. Of course Connie knew she should give herself more credit, but feelings were feelings.

“It is enough. It’s always been enough.”

His sigh was heavy. Connie closed her eyes as his right hand came and stroked over her breasts. She felt his chest and belly shake with a deep chuckle.

“What would you feel if you were a monster?” Steven asked. “I never thought you hated me. But I never thought you’d want me like this. Nobody could want me like this.”

“What’re you gonna do about it?” she replied.

Steven paused, opening his hand. It spread across Connie’s chest, settling on a single breast and squeezing softly. His claws extended and pushed into her skin like a cat stretching.

“Make you feel good, I suppose,” Steven said.

He had no idea. Connie had to retain that notion in her head. Steven could come inside her brain as he came inside her body, he could feel a moment and a burst of sexual energy, but he could never know the entirety of what it meant to be Connie. She wasn’t some mindless animal he could take over in a daydream. She wasn’t part of his nature. She was a storm, uprooting his present and kissing away his doubts. Connie Maheswaran was the intruder.

Steven’s body curled around his lover. His genitals, warm and sticky, lay loose next to Connie’s body. He had always been a fastidious boy. Instead of plasticine soaps and shampoos, false fragrances, he now chose to smell like a woodland stream. Connie knew she kept thinking about the word until it didn’t mean anything, but it crept into her head again and again, puncturing her thoughts of Steven: _real._

What was real was between them. There was no true isolation for either Steven or Connie, not as long as one was in the other’s head. Connie raised both hands and held on as Steven squeezed her, folding her fingers over the back of his hand. She had allowed him inside already. The memories tromped around her head and marked their land with claw marks in her brain. No animal could hold Steven for long, and here she was, a human being, who had had Steven living inside of her for over a decade. Her heart was his territory. As they laid there, she knew the inverse was true as well. She had to hope beyond hope that it was true. When they were done relaxing, in the light of the fire at night, she would make Steven paint her. If there was truth to his words, he would know exactly what colors he should use for her skin, her hair, her eyes. He would know the exact abstractions. Like all his other works of art, then, Steven would erase it from the stone, and Connie’s flesh would be the only thing that remained.


	2. By the River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven shows Connie some of his powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous commission <3 There will be more following this AU! Stay tuned.

Steven pointed. “There’s one.”

The two stood on the rocks by the edge of the river. Connie followed Steven’s hand down to the pool where, indeed, the fish were swimming. They couldn’t have been more than five or six inches long, bottom-feeders soaking up the warmth of the sunlight.

Sleeping had been easy after a hearty fruit meal. Steven had devoured whole patches of his garden, rinds and all, eating what he could and saving the seeds. He appeared apologetic for his table manners, but Connie couldn’t blame him considering the state of his isolation. There was no reason for him to develop the habits of humanity when he had so removed himself from the concept. They had walked back to the pool for water. Connie knew she had to get used to this primitive lifestyle, drinking where they bathed, from the wild waters, eating the fruits grown from saliva and hope. There were other accommodations she didn’t want to think about right now.

Waking up next to Steven had been like waking up from a dream, with the man curled around her and snoring gently. He was so warm that she had almost forgotten that they were without a blanket or even a door. This truly was the wilds. Still, as they hiked down in the morning, Connie had put her shoes and socks on. She didn’t have Steven’s pawlike feet and calluses from living out here. 

Their nudity was unseen by all eyes but the eyes of the birds and bugs and little beasts. They walked to the sound of animals crying out for each other. Steven had left the skirt behind. There was no point to it, not with Connie almost completely bare beside him. They had to get used to the air, and Steven already was. Summer heat slowly filled the forest, inch by inch.

As they walked, Connie had noticed the natural beauty around them, and she understood how Steven could live in one place like this.

The sunrise peeked over the mountains far beyond here to the east. They were on top of a valley, near the middle of the range, in a forest that was in love with the alpine zone. But the trees here were huge enough to show that they were still close to sea level, rising hundreds of feet into the air above them, red trunks thick enough to hug. A swath of ferns guided them as they walked through the woods. The sunbeams appeared solid with the swirling mist of the deciduous morning, passing through the canopy and rising up to warm the loam and greenery. Moths flitted in confusion to be snapped up by the juvenile swallows and flycatchers, insect-feeders whose children called out to them from holes high above the earth inside of tree trunks. Here and there, the world was littered with rough mossy boulders, glacial deposits of elephantine gray from when the world was young.

Water swirled and burbled as they approached the brook and found their quarry. Connie crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at Steven, nodding her head.

“Show me,” she said.

Steven chuckled and held out one lazy hand, snapping his fingers. A bubble materialized around one of the fish inside the water, perfect pink, and the animal bumped up against it in confusion. The fish thrashed with plenty of room. Steven lowered his hand, and the two watched as the fish plodded about inside the gem bubble like it was a hamster ball. The other fish regarded it with confusion, drawn to the warmth but unsure what this new item was. One of them plastered its mouth on the side and sucked for a moment before turning away at the realization that it was not, in fact, food.

“What a poor baby,” Connie pouted.

She pursed her lips before both she and Steven broke into a giggle fit. There were so many species to observe, so many ways to play with the wildlife. It seemed a tad bit cruel to interfere, but Connie remembered: Steven was part of the wildlife now, and yet he wasn’t. Even outside of his home, he lived a hybrid life.

“You know it doesn’t hurt them,” Steven chastised. “I don’t eat any of the animals out here. They’re too hard to clean, and I feel — obligated.”

“Obligated to what?”

“Hell if I know. But I feel it. Obligated not to eat them, I guess.”

Slowly, Steven raised the bubble out of the water. He did it presumably through his mind alone, as Connie didn’t see him raise a finger to bring it into view. The bubble and the fish inside floated over towards them until they hovered in the space between. Steven waved his hand over the bubble, and the pinkness became clearer, so clear that there was only the smallest hint of red in the glassy sphere. Connie could see an undiluted view of the fish’s slimy body. It was scaleless and striped, the color of old mustard with black splotches. Its magnificent whiskers trailed in the water right in front of its gaping oval mouth. The eyes were glassy and gold and wide-set, with a pitch-black unblinking pupil.

The color-changing of the bubbles was new. The way he was able to bring them up was also something Connie had never seen before. Out here on his own, Steven must have experimented with his powers to a degree that he didn’t even recognize. There must be things like the power she was about to see that he could do without thinking. It was amazing for him to even exist out here, for him to be able to live in the woods as his own species.

“Do you have to sit down?” Connie asked. “Do you fall over at all?”

“Well, if I’m sleeping or if I’m doing it for a few hours, then I try to get myself comfortable. If it’s just for a minute or two, then my body seems to naturally adjust, and I can stand up. Like a tiger. I read about their legs, how they’re super strong, and they can die standing up.”

“We’re not gonna bring that out right now. And Steven? Please don’t experiment with dying.”

“Too late, the thoughts already passed. But that was a while ago. I promise.”

It didn’t matter. Connie gave him a look, and Steven could only glance to the river and shrug sheepishly. He had never been one for serious dark humor, and he could never deliver in a way that made Connie not worry. When she had been separated from Steven, the darkest parts of her mind had told her that life wasn’t worth living without him. Frequent calls to Greg and the Gems helped with that, enough so that Connie could get out of those ruts whenever they came up. With no such system, Steven was on his own in the worst way. Connie didn’t want to think about Steven’s dark thoughts in isolation. 

“But the point is, um,” Steven mumbled, “I don’t have to sit down. I think it has something to do with the brain or the inner ear or something.”

“Or, it could just be magic,” Connie offered. 

“All this magic is just — part of me. It’s weird to think about it in terms of stuff we don’t understand. I like understanding myself. But it probably is just magic.”

“I’m the only one that understands you, Steven, and don’t you forget it.”

There, a genuine smile from both of them, and a flick of appreciation from the fish. The inverse, of course, was truer; Steven had been inside her head and had felt her perspective as he was inside her. He had seen everything from her eyes. Connie could pretend she understood Steven, but she couldn’t tell him how afraid she was at any moment of losing him to the barrier between them. The little moments that brought them together, the nudity, the meals — it all helped inch by inch.

“I haven’t been a fish in a while,” Steven murmured as he rotated the bubble. “That’s the thing about mammals, I guess. I can definitely understand them. But with fish and insects, like, you feel the breath different in your body. There are holes and pores all over, and then I wake up and my own body feels different.”

“Is it okay to do this? I really don’t want to force you into showing me.”

“It’s okay, I promise! Don’t worry about me. Just...watch.”

Steven and Connie stood facing each other. The man took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling as he closed his eyes. Both hands came up to cup the bubble without touching it. The fish swam around inside, unaware and unthinking. Connie looked Steven over, wondering if there was going to be a kind of transition, if he would chant or growl or say anything at all. There was a moment of silence before she saw it.

It was a small and smooth transition. The fish’s eyes began to shift, fading quickly into the blackness until there was no light as it swam to a halt. Hovering in the bubble, the fish seemed to blink though it had no eyelids. Pink circles emerged from the center of each tiny sphere, expanding to almost fill the blackness, before the diamond emerged in the center, and the fish began to swim freely again. The pink transition didn’t take more than a few seconds. The creature swam merrily around as it had been before, now with Steven’s eyes.

The transition made Connie feel strange in her stomach. This was what had happened to her yesterday afternoon, the exact motions taking place over the course of an involuntary second. She watched the fish move about, its gills heaving as the oxygen slowly but surely ran out in its little bubble. There was a ways to go yet. Steven, the human, stood still, his brain trapped in the body of the creature before them. He was living through its confusion, its animal mindlessness, living through its slimy body in the sphere. He was there.

Connie knew nothing about fish, but she knew about Steven, and she knew that he must have been used to this. She wondered if he thought about controlling them like he had done his friend Lars or the watermelon body. She wondered what the fish thought of the massive beasts that stood around it, if it had any notion that one of them was living inside of its head. But she had felt Steven when he had been inside her. The fish must know. It knew, and it could never comprehend.

“I-I’ve seen enough,” Connie said. “You can come out now.”

What did Steven see inside an animal’s head? Could he hear the words? What happened if the animal were to die? Had he lived through a fish as it was caught in the beak of a bird, felt a bird as it was torn apart by a feral cat, witnessed a rabbit as a lynx chewed on its still-warm intestines? He must have known so much and lived through inhuman things. Connie felt a single tear roll down her cheek, and she didn’t know why. She was afraid. Afraid of what? Steven was here. There was nothing to fear. 

The woman reached around the bubble and grabbed Steven’s shoulder fiercely. Her fingers dug into the knotted purple skin as she tried to stop her train of thought. Immediately, the fish’s eyes unclouded and Steven opened his own, blinking in the sunlight. He shook the languor out of his head and looked over where Connie was staring at him.

“Oh, crap, I’m sorry.”

He threw his hand backwards, and the bubble whizzed towards the water, breaking open over the pond and splashing the fish back home. It hit the surface and vanished underneath, twirling around in its freedom. The other fish circled it, unknowing and only moderately curious as their brethren came back into their midst.

Connie was still watching the animals when Steven walked over and hugged her. Of course she hugged back, rocking in his muscular embrace. It was a quick cry, an easy cry, a moment of fear allayed by his presence. The man’s body growled for her as he breathed in and out. Comfort rolled over Connie like the sun.

“I’m sorry, Connie, I didn’t — I didn’t think, I didn’t mean to —”

“It’s okay,” she mumbled into his chest. “I’m okay, Steven. I just got a weird feeling.”

They remained for a second in each other’s embrace. Connie forced herself to feel their shared nudity. It was nonsexual, sensible, something she could take comfort in. The warmth of her breasts and torso was shared with the warmth of Steven’s abdomen and gemstone. His arms, which felt as thick as the tree trunks around them, moved like branches in the breeze as his clawtips stroked her skin. The softness of his private parts, as warm as his gem, pressed into Connie’s stomach, and she felt every wrinkle, every memory of the previous night. In this, she took a semblance of comfort.

“Maybe I thought I would lose you somehow,” Connie said. “Maybe because I’m here, because I looked for you for so long, I just — I worried that I would lose you in that stupid fish. You could live a lifetime in another creature’s body.”

“I have, Connie.”

Steven heaved a deep sigh and increased his rocking, shifting from foot to foot as he thought and talked. Connie loved the sensation of being moved.

“Birds and bugs and things like tadpoles, well, some of them don’t live for very long. But I’ve been with a dying animal before, and it’s…” He paused. “They know someone else is with them as they die, but they don’t know what it means. They’re not like humans. That’s how I know I’ve got something else in me, y’know? Because I know what it feels like to be alone and have someone come and find you. It feels good to me. The animals, they don’t understand.”

The man broke the embrace and moved his massive hands to rest on Connie’s shoulders. He rubbed the muscles there as they looked into each other’s eyes. Connie stared at the blackness as Steven tilted his head, chewing on the inside of his mouth with those sharp teeth. 

“As soon as you kissed me, it was like you came into my head, too, and it saved me from dying out here alone. I could have lived here until I was old and never known. Thank you. Never let me take this back. I love you, and thank you.”

Now it was his turn to cry. Connie reached up and wiped the tears from his face, resting the back of her hands on his protruding tusks. Her fingers traced down the side of the crystalline structures, and she stroked softly, raising her fingertips to touch the wet parts of Steven’s face.

They had to find beauty in the gap. There would always be a separation between them, between human and monster, between human and Gem, the magic and the mortal. Closing the gap was impossible as far as Connie knew. She looked at her lover and felt a deep sorrow, and took pleasure in it. He would always be the most unique creature on the face of the planet. Each muscle, each movement, he would be alone in unless she was there with him to observe. In their togetherness they could live separately.

“I love you too, Steven.”

They returned to the hug. This time, it was warmer, like the late morning creeping up on the forest, the sunlight permeating the perimeter of Steven’s compound. Both Steven and Connie sighed at the same time, and the man chuffed in gentle laughter. Connie smiled and pulled herself up on Steven’s muscles.

Back at the stone compound, she could take her shoes off, and they could be naked together again. Connie opened her eyes and looked to the river and the mossiness beyond Steven’s hairy body. She gripped him and heaved another deep breath as she squeezed him against her. No matter how much the sun shined, he would always be warmer than the rocks, infinitely warmer than the cool water, and all his skin would be soft to the touch. Connie dug her fingers into Steven and thanked him silently as a warbler called in the distance.


	3. All Nighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie has a hard time sleeping at college after such a wonderful experience in the woods in the summer.

Connie felt somewhat justified when she glanced at her phone and saw the time. She let it fall to her chest, heavy in her hand. Sleeping came easily to her now that she was back at school, despite it all. In the months that followed since her visit to Steven, she had been surprised at how easy it was to slip back into a schedule. Nobody knew where she had been. Not one of them suspected that she had gone to see him. Her parents had asked a little about her trip, and Connie had lied as best she could. The school year had started without a hitch.

The dorm was silent. Her new roomate this year, Ash, was sound asleep on the other side of the room. She was a fastidious girl with artistic impulses and the annoying ability to fall asleep and always wake up refreshed even from midafternoon naps. The late summer rolled in against the window. They closed the blinds at night to keep the sun from waking them up too early. The white outlines of band posters shone on the walls. Connie raised her head just enough to see the glimmer of light on the edge of her photographs on her desk. Ash’s desk was fairly barren, with her laptop’s charger blinking from behind a textbook. Somewhere across campus, Connie could hear the sound of a car pulling around to drop someone off at a different building. This year, Connie got the opportunity to stay in the newest building at Jayhawk, with better-equipped kitchens and singleton bathrooms in every hall. 

The young woman stretched her arms above her head until her back cracked. She pushed the covers down with her feet, then pulled them back up over her. She felt restless for a reason she couldn’t place. Nothing was unusual except for the waking. She had eaten a nice salad for dinner and had cheesecake for dessert, had showered that morning and had prepared for the weekend of studying. Ash had been buried in an essay and Connie in three.

And it felt normal, and it felt awful. When she had spent her time with Steven in the woods, they had been together almost every moment, learning and loving and reconnecting. They had walked around naked and talked about their bodies. He had rubbed Connie’s back with the strength of a galaxy, and she had given back what she could. She missed the massages. She missed his body every day, his soul every second.

Going to school was a promise of sorts, a promise that she would try to live a normal life outside of him. It was jarring to think that Greg and the Gems had no idea Steven was even alive, and Connie felt sick to her stomach with guilt. She had to tell Greg that his son was just as good as he had been, and that there was some hope of him reconnecting. The Gems would be overjoyed, the Diamonds almost more so. Connie tried not to tap her nails against the back of her phone, drumming her fingertips softly so as not to wake Ash.

Her fingers twitched. Connie glanced down at her hand. She wasn’t used to involuntary spasms. Maybe the stress was getting to her more than she thought. The room was starting to seem odd to her, like she was looking at the walls and corners through a haze. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the corners of their dressers, one blocked right next to the other, covered in an awful visual smog, the same kind that turned the sky burnt maroon from the city lights.

Maybe she had to go to the bathroom. At the very least, she had to get a drink, or wander the halls, or maybe she would get some of that leftover Korean food they had in the fridge. Connie felt weird. There was no other word for the feeling, and Connie hated the unspecific sensation. Her skin was crawling like she was too hot, yet the room was cooled by the night air. As she tossed off her blanket and sat upright on her bed, she felt her vision unfocus, as if she was dizzy, but everything in the room was so clear, unnaturally clear. Connie stumbled quietly to her sandals, sliding them on as she straightened up.

The hall lights were dimmed at night, but still visible behind the door. Next to the door was a full-length mirror, and as Connie walked to open the door, she glanced at the shadow of her reflection.

Connie covered her mouth to keep from yelling out in surprise. Floating in the middle of the room, two pink diamonds glowed, illuminating the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. As her eyes widened, so did the lights. Connie froze with one hand on the handle and the other on her face. She let her hand fall, mouth open, as she finally relaxed — as much as she could, anyway, with the knowledge that she did.

The reason this feeling was so unnatural was that Steven had only done it once before, on accident, their first time together. Connie lowered herself to her knees in front of the mirror, releasing the handle and cupping both hands over her mouth. Steven couldn’t sleep, perhaps, or maybe he was meditating once again, trying to reach her. How much control did he have over his acts of possession? Was it him who had made her hand twitch, or was that just how her muscles reacted to the act?

Applying logic to Steven’s body and magic was a fool’s errand, despite how much it made Connie wonder. It was almost painful to know that so much of his life and powers had to be attributed to the umbrella of “no one knows.” On Homeworld, there were probably extensive systems and mathematical principals to explain how all the Gems worked, how fusion happened and where powers came from. Either that, or it was so natural that nobody cared to define it. There was so much to discover. Connie stared at her own reflection and stuck to wondering about the moment and about what Steven was seeing and doing right now. He clearly had memories of the times that he was inside something like a rabbit or fish. So, when he came out, he would have memories of his time inside of Connie. And she knew that he shared her thoughts. From what she knew of him, he would have been apologetic for making her feel physically awkward, for waking her up so early.

_ Don’t be sorry, _ she thought.  _ I miss you, too. _

He was inside of her, again. The strangeness that Connie felt was him inside of her. There was, she thought with a small smile, something sexual about that as well, a passing perverted image to hold them over. She raised one hand and held it against the cold surface of the mirror. No, that was too jarring, too unlike the flesh. Connie lowered her hand and held her left and right together, clasping them softly. She let her own warmth be her guide.

It wasn’t the same, but it was close. In times like these, it was unrealistic to hope that she could see Steven in the flesh, that either one could travel to the other safely. Lion wouldn’t have taken her anywhere close, and there was no chance of a local warp. Travel by foot was the only option, and the timing didn’t work out between school and life and free time. Connie felt her heart ache, but she squeezed her hands together. They had to do what they had to do.

“I love you,” she whispered. 

However quiet it was, she knew he could hear every word she said. He felt her lips moving. He felt her heart beating.

In the stillness of the room, Connie, still on her knees, bit her lip. If she acted fast, maybe she could surprise him. Unless he already knew? It didn’t matter. The young woman moved slowly as she gripped the bottom of her shirt.

Scooting closer to the mirror, Connie raised the garment. Without a bra, the coldness of the glass encroached upon her, skin prickling as she leaned in. Her mouth opened in agonized wordlessness as she pressed her bare breasts against the glass. The chill shocked her body, cold and clear like the waters in Steven’s pond. She felt her heart skip. The skin around her nipples shrunk, or at least it felt like it did. The coldness was what matter. Vibrations and sensory waves ran down her abdomen as she gently moved herself on the mirror. The sound of moving skin felt so loud in the darkness.

Steven could feel every bit of ice, she knew. Like a bitter and beautiful snowfall, the sensation of the night ran down her chest. Connie wished it had been Steven’s coldness, moving water that fell over her, but this was what they had for the moment. As long as he was inside, he could feel the radiating chill and the warmth that came after it. She leaned back away from the mirror, eyes closed. One hand came up to squeeze her left breast, feeling the raised and sensitive nipple and pulling at the nub. Her teeth sunk into her cheek as she gripped it in her fingers. Even alone, she could conjure the same type of pain that she loved so much. And it wasn’t pain, and she wasn’t alone. Her pink eyes could recontextualize it all.

The only unfortunate part of this reality was that she had to work in the morning, and there was still schooling she needed to take care of. If Steven was living in a nearby apartment on sixth ave instead of in the middle of the woods, she could focus on her boyfriend and her work at the same time. Everything was limited.

Tonight, though, they could sleep together. If she slept, and if Steven was inside her, could he see her dreams? Would he feel refreshed if he woke up? There was so much experimenting to be done, but Connie could already feel the tiredness of the night encroaching upon her. She let go of her body and let the shirt fall back down. It was time to make the most of the night.

Connie stood and walked with legs that were not all hers over to her desk. She knelt and slowly pulled out the bottom drawer. Underneath a heavy textbook on tax law, there was a plastic container, and she popped it open as quietly as she could. There were only three toys. Connie went for what she was pretty sure was the black vibe, the small and expensive one. Thankfully, she thought, Ash wouldn’t wake up at all. It was entirely possible that she could stay in the bedroom for this. But just in case, she had to make a move. 

Before she stood up, Connie closed her eyes and raised the dildo up to her mouth. She slipped the textured head down her throat, pushing it onto her tongue. It was a taste of things to come for Steven, her hidden passenger. When staying with him, oral sex had required a lot of shapeshifting, but it was never small. This size was easier to handle.  _ See? _ Connie thought to herself, giving her best mental smirk.  _ It’d be so much easier if you lost some pride. _

Her fingers turned the handle on their door to unlock it as she slipped through the dorm room door; it was easier than carrying a keycard. It was warm enough even in just her shirt and shorts as she made the one-meter dash to the bathroom across the hall. Once inside, Connie made sure the door was locked behind her. 

As Connie walked over to the mirror, she was already taking her shirt off, vibrator in hand. She tossed it to the ground without a care, staring at herself in the mirror. With the light on, her eyes were that much more dramatic, and it was a shock and a half to see her reflection fully. Even in the fluorescents, the pink irises were dramatic, shockingly bright like the inside of a poisonous animal’s mouth. The darkness around them looked like paint water, inky and liquid and absolute, and Connie had to blink to register that this was indeed her reflection. Naked from the waist up, the young woman began to run her hands over her stomach and chest, massaging her skin and arching her fingers, raking her short nails over the nerves.

“I know you’re awake,” she whispered to Steven. “I know you can feel me.”

Her softness was so different that Steven’s skin and scales. There was a whole other texture, an unspeakable difference to how Steven felt. She had to imagine that the sensations were the same, though, or at least similar, trails of electricity wandering through the skin like roots, a unique animal heat traipsing up the body. Everything was nerves. Magic or not, Steven had human sensations, human needs.

As she rubbed herself, Connie could feel the presence shaking. She feared for a moment that he was losing control, but no, the eyes were as strong as ever. The shaking in her hands was so slight that she almost couldn’t feel it at a first take. That was something that she wasn’t controlling, a twitch outside of herself, and she smiled.

“You like being inside me. I can feel you, too.”

Slowly, Connie leaned over the sink towards the mirror. Her hair drifted downwards as she kissed the glass, closing her eyes and holding her face up. The reflection provided no comfort. Only in the notion of self-similarity, superposition, was there power. Two bodies in one, two hearts beating synchronously, two libidos in mutual understanding — it was enough for Connie and it was all she had. The surface was clean enough and Connie was daring enough. She lowered her head and pictured Steven’s chest, then dragged her tongue up the mirror. There would be skin in the future. The taste was still in her mind.

Having Steven in her head meant that he could taste himself, too. Wasn’t that, Connie thought, the most sure way to destroy self-doubt? There was no question that she was lusting after him and loving him at the same time. She drew away from her reflection and tilted her head past the streak she had left in the otherwise perfect glass. She couldn’t stop the grin from taking over her face. 

Maybe she could understand the man now, just a little more, as she looked at herself in the mirror. The more she stared, the less human she felt. This was, however, more impish, like a fairy-tale creature above any monster, a feeling of being unapologetically naughty. It was a luxury. Steven had other qualities that prevented him from that antho-centric perspective. Still, detaching herself from her species felt freeing. 

Her left hand gripped the porcelain as her right edged down inside of her shorts. The elastic parted for her as she slid past the skin, past the hair, letting a single finger between each side.

“I miss you  _ inside _ me, Steven.”

Two fingers began to rub on either side of her clit. Connie closed her eyes and let her hands take over, slowly masturbating herself in her shorts. Maybe it was because of Steven that she was feeling so horny, but she hadn’t actually touched herself much except for when she was thinking about him. There was reason now. Remembering their epic sexual vacation, as exhausting and embarrassing as it was to consider, brought back a treasure trove of masturbation aids. 

Sex with Steven for the first time almost made Connie want to believe in virginity. Nothing was lost, but from that moment on, so much had been gained. His size, his inhuman grip, the bulbous head squeezing into her, the tightness of the wet muscle as it enveloped him, the hot breath, the jutting spikes, the soft moss and the hard scales… Connie curled her fingers up inside herself effortlessly and opened her mouth. Unable to moan for fear of waking up the light sleepers in the hall, she trembled and held a silent breath to the mirror. 

Coaxing out the pleasure was as easy as remembering the catalyst. She opened her eyes and stared at herself as her lungs heaved. If she was close enough, Connie could imagine she was looking at Steven, but she couldn’t imagine that these were his fingers. He was so much bigger than her in every respect, a tamed beast, a beautiful creation of fear and feral kindness. With a shaking left hand, she gripped her shorts and tugged them to her thighs, shimmying them down to the tiled floor before she kicked them to meet her discarded shirt.

Her hand came back to the sink, and she dug in her grip as she flexed her pointer finger, her third, and pushed it past the rim into the folds. It wasn’t easy, but it was doable, and squeezing around herself was just as rewarding as she thought it would be. Connie had been intimidated by Steven, and she had every right to be. But for all the pain of her first penetration, she had loved the feeling of something big inside her. It was satisfying, it felt monstrous, it felt like she was fucking that feral creature, and every circuit in her brain wired itself to make her cum like she had never cum before. Indeed, if Steven was here now, she would gladly stretch herself. 

It was hard to even think about. Connie’s sturdy knees shook as her fingers twitched inside of her tenderness. Her quiet breaths came fast and hot as she rubbed her fingers vigorously. The sensation was accentuated by the possession. Steven in her body was giving her new feelings, sharing the link psychically. She could feel him, and he could feel her.

Where had that vibrator gone? Connie didn’t remember putting it on the edge of the sink, but her eyes darted down, and she felt coercion from within, a mental draw. It would be Steven’s first interaction with electricity since he had secluded himself, not counting Connie showing him photos on her phone of college and her campus. But now he was seeing it in person, wasn’t he. Connie let out a gentle ‘ _ heh, _ ’ an affirmation. She could feel the equal parts personal draw and love from the monster inside her; he wanted to feel her use it, and he wanted to feel it himself.

“Alright, honey, let me get comfortable,” she murmured. “Should’ve brought a towel…”

Tile would have to do. First things first, though — Connie grunted as she slipped her fingers out. She brought the three wet digits up to her lips, closed her eyes, and let Steven suck on them. It was a taste she wasn’t familiar with, one she hadn’t felt before. To her, it was simply the taste of Connie, unremarkably skinlike with a salty edge of humanity. To the man inside, Connie could feel her spine quaking with his pleasure. Perhaps, she thought, the possession wasn’t as one-sided as he always thought it was. But he also didn’t get this kind of enjoyment from nature. No, this was special.

Connie let the fingers slide out of her mouth. She blinked at herself, and swore that her pupils were dilated, or that the pink was more intense. She had to bid her reflection farewell as she took the vibe and lowered herself to the ground.

With her left hand, the young woman spread her lips, rubbing the edges of her labia. Lying down on the tile was cool, the same cool that had made her skin shudder before, but she could ignore that all when she was on her back and so close. She let her legs butterfly to the side, knees bent and muscles flexing. Before she even thought about putting it in, Connie pushed the button on the bottom and ran the humming phallus and ran it down her right leg, over her hole, and up the left, a parabola of pleasure. Was it teasing? Probably. The energy she got from the man inside her was at a constant threshold of excitement. She couldn’t tell if he was any more or less engaged with her motions. Still, Connie imagined him, sitting in that mossy rock, eyes closed and body perfectly still, twitching in his magic meditation, rock-hard and dripping onto his scales.

She pushed the vibrator inside her. It was graceless, frantic, and she loved it. Connie stared with black eyes up at the frosted lights as the hum was muted by her body. The toy thrummed against her, deeper inside than she had let it go before, or maybe it just felt that way since she was so aroused. Her back arched on the floor as she let the pleasure roam through her body like she had roamed through the woods that afternoon.

The fingers of Connie’s left hand rolled in slow circles around her clit, rubbing the hood back and forth on the outside as she worked on the inside. Her grip with her right fingers was precise and forceful, rolling it back and forth in the pink, shaking up her insides as deep as the little black toy would allow.

Maybe on that first afternoon Steven had hit the elusive g-spot, or maybe he had just rubbed her into pleasure; there was no way of knowing. Connie didn’t care. Her back hit the ground once more, the hard tile, and she felt the immense weight on top of her. She imagined Steven’s body and hers in the same space, melded in sex, fusing together — not as Stevonnie, but as pure experience, pleasure with each other. The vibrator was just a toy, but just like the memories, Steven was real, conscious, and inside her. Every part of him was with her, and still separated by the veil of a single body. There was no feeling like it on the planet. Connie loved that about Steven and about loving him as a Gem and as a so-called monster. There was that beat, that same sensation, that he was a true alien, completely new and completely unknown and unowned. Connie was the only one with the privilege to love someone like Steven, and he loved her enough to become her.

He could feel the warmth of the impending orgasm as she dug the vibrator in and up, forcing him to feel that same gasp as her eyes closed and almost rolled in the pleasure of self-love. He felt the sensitivities of organs he would never have, the inner workings of Connie’s folds and the sensitivity of her clit between her finger. The clenching of her glutes he could understand, but not the flex of the pussy. She was his new species. But it was a human body, and he knew that, and he was exploring her as much as he was exploring himself. To be inside was to be inside. The double entendre had crossed Connie’s mind, but it was even more than that: he  _ was _ .

Connie’s actions were not her own, not entirely. She let the curious ghost of her partner explore her. The hand rubbing her clit moved uncertainly before it got into a rhythm again, hiccuping and heaving in a dramatic motion. Connie stimulated herself with the same vigor that Steven would stimulate her, pumping the vibrator in rhythm. As she let herself go, the woman felt the sensations course through her body, and they were brand new again. The first time she had dared touch herself with confidence was a wonderful moment, and it returned in tandem with the man she loved.

It was that love that spread through Connie’s legs as she came, and she came hard, her muscles contracting like they had been electrocuted. She spread herself and turned her head to the side into her hair. All the strength in her body rushed to her throat to keep herself from crying out in pleasure. Unchecked, the orgasm wracked her legs and gut in warmth. Concentric waves of contractions flexed around the vibrator inside her, shocking her throbbing clit and making it tremble underneath her fingers. But it could just as well have been her shaking limbs, as her hands and feet were vibrating along with the toy, fingers and toes curling up with the involuntary contractions. Connie felt blood rushing through her body, sparks underneath her skin, skin that was not hers. She swore she could hear Steven roaring in his sleep from cities away, a whole civilization dividing them and yet, nothing at all stood between their existences. Steven came as she did, not along with her, but  _ as _ her, within her, a facet of her being.

Wetness dribbled down, sweat and fluids, soaking the space between Connie’s legs. The heat didn’t go away. Connie couldn’t feel the tiles’ temperature anymore. Her body felt like it was a thousand degrees, like she was indeed carrying the weight of two people inside of her. She had carried Steven before, but they were children then. Now, she wasn’t in a place to carry anyone. With a fumbling click, she turned the vibrator off.

She still felt shaky. The climax had rocked her, and she felt like a naked, wonderful mess, just like she had whenever she and Steven had fucked each other in the woods, except… 

Connie licked her dry lips and opened her eyes to the blurry world again. Things were too different. She withdrew the dildo, and forced herself to roll on her side with a grunt. Even though she felt like she was going to collapse, there was enough strength to stand, to walk over to the sink and briefly consider holding the black silicone underwater. What did Steven want? In a last burst of energy, Connie allowed her arm to bend and carry the toy up to her mouth. It tasted the same, but there was still pleasure to be had for Steven, it seemed. He could never tire of her taste. 

Connie let it slide off her lower lip, then regained her senses. It felt like Steven was watching as she turned on the hot water and lazily let it roll over the blackness. She turned off the water and grabbed a paper towel, toweling off the toy before balling up the towel and tossing it. Her clothes seemed to look up at her from the ground. Anthropomorphizing her pajamas probably wasn’t a good sign.

“God, I probably smell like sex. But not in the good way,” she mumbled. “I...can’t smell myself. Not like you can. I’m gonna need a long shower in the morning.”

She looked up to the mirror. Connie tightened her lips. Getting another paper towel, she squirted some foaming soap on and rubbed it over the glass to get rid of her earlier tongue marks. A quick wash later and things were back to normal. Hopefully, nobody else in the hall would make out with their reflections like she had anytime soon.

The vibe remained gripped in her hands as she pulled her shorts and loose shirt back on. Her hair was a mess, spread out behind her and draped in front of her eyes. Still, she double-checked her reflection. The black pools were still there, the irises pink as sunset and just as terrifying. She smiled at herself, but looked herself in the eyes. It was easy knowing that she wasn’t alone. Connie slipped the vibrator into her pocket.

“I do have to go to bed. But, Steven… Thank you. I love you. I… You know I miss you. You know how I feel. Come to bed with me, if you want, but I do have to sleep for tomorrow.”

In an instant, Connie felt a sweeping rush through her body, as if she was being hugged from behind. She had to grab the sink to keep from falling over. Steven was very conscious, very much with her, and she could feel his embrace outside of herself. The young woman watched her eyes water up. There was hair matter to her forehead, sweat stuck in the baby hairs on her cheeks, and she swore she could hear Steven sighing. When he had been gone, knocked unconscious on the beach on the day of Garnet’s wedding, he had spoken to her from beyond the pale, rushed through her like a dream. Connie watched the pink of her eyes turn to dust. It was a horrible feeling to watch the beautiful vibrancy as it sunk into the pools of black, and then the solid ebon drained away from the surface of her eyes, fading in all directions, leaving her blinking into the dark brown once again. But Steven was still there. She could feel all seven feet of him behind her. His body knelt to hug her. She felt every spike, the brush of his tusks, his naked form and muscles and body hair and every part of him that could be felt. She reached to her chest where he was hugging, and felt only her own skin.

“I love you, too.”

The voice was gone, and the man was gone too. Alone in the bathroom, Connie felt herself almost faint. She was exhausted. She had the strength to hold herself up and look herself in the face. Immediately, she felt the loneliness again, but Connie couldn’t help but smile. Only Connie could understand this loneliness. Nobody in the world had been possessed like that. Nobody in the world had had an orgasm that intense. The dual nature was Connie’s alone to have. Not even Steven could fully understand.

Tomorrow, she would shower and wash the smell of sex off of her. As she washed her hands under cold water, Connie let her tired muscles flop. She would work on her essay, research more about zoning and jurisdiction. The young woman smiled as she dried her hands. Sweaty and sore, she would sleep. But whenever she woke up again in the middle of the night again, she knew the first thing she had to do was look in the mirror. They could talk to one another and talk about timing. They could talk about the day that Connie would come back. Maybe they would talk about the day that Steven returned, too. Connie gave a half-smile. If only.

She opened up the bathroom door, then let it click behind her. Ten minutes later, the lights turned off by themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my longest work, the one that I'm the most proud of, and I hope that everything was enjoyable! If there are any tags I should add, feel free to suggest them. All thoughts and comments are appreciated. Whew!


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